Last year, James Stewart Kirkpatrick spoke of his company having never been busier.

It continues to defy trying climes in 2012. The James Kirkpatrick Group – of which
the 81-year-old founder is sole shareholder – is successfully sticking to its knitting. The pattern first set half a century ago and articulated by Mr Kirkpatrick

is to build industrial buildings. The latest example is what is said to be one of the biggest newly- constructed industrial facilities in Auckland – a large portion
of which is leased by cosmetics company L’Oreal.

The 12,000sq m warehouse
and office complex in Otahuhu, Auckland, is something of a rarity in these straitened times: few significant industrial facilities in Auckland have been built of late. “The Kirkpatrick Group has been one of a few industrial landlords to take a strategic and counter-cynical approach to the recession and has used the past 18 months to build spec facilities, when most other landlords have been requiring pre-commitment from tenants in order to commence construction,” a Colliers broker told the New Zealand Herald. Further schemes included a 7000sq m shed in Mangere.