Christchurch City Holdings chairman Bruce Irvine says there is no commitment yet to subsidiary City Care moving into "vertical" construction.

Last week, City Care said it had hired the collapsed Mainzeal's South Island management team to form the core of a new commercial construction division but did not elaborate what sorts of business it would be seeking.

But from what Mayor Bob Parker has said and CCHL chairman Bruce Irvine, it's unclear whether City Care will construct commercial buildings.

"We have asked them (City Care) to tell us what it is going to look like and then we will have a debate with them about what we see in terms of what their plans are," Irvine said.

The decision to hire the Mainzeal team, eight staff, was taken by City Care.

"They told us what they were doing. I confirmed with them that that was acceptable," Irvine said.

"There's no huge commitment or anything yet.

"We've employed a group of very talented, skilled people. Now they need to tell us what they plan to do with them."

Asked if City Care would operate like other construction companies, Irvine said: "I wouldn't assume that they've employed them that that's what they are going to do. It's too early to make that assumption."

There was plenty of work at City Care for the ex-Mainzeal team.

Asked whether City Care might get into the large CBD anchor projects, Irvine said: "I very much doubt that that will be the case.

"This is a handful of people and that would involve huge commitments. And I think there is a lot of other bigger players that deal with those."

- © Fairfax NZ News

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