Kiwifruit marketer Zespri's short-term solution to office space shortage gets under way this week, with a temporary building set to give more than 50 staff new work spaces by April.

Steel fences have been erected around a section of the Tauranga City Council-owned parkland in Miro Street, adjacent to the organisation's Maunganui Road premises, in preparation for the build.

The site set aside for the 648m3 offices accommodating about 60 Zespri staff. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

This comes after council approved Zespri's application to place 648m2 of temporary office accommodation for two years late last year – despite 44 of 52 public submissions in opposition to the development.

The proposal covers 648m2 of the 3594m2 council-owned land, which is zone commercial, and there will be continued public access and use of the remaining green space.

To make room for the building, three trees will be felled on the leased section – a reduction from the seven Zespri initially proposed to council.

Zespri's Supply Chain Development general manager Simon Chisholm says current premises are over capacity and the temporary offices will house about 60 of the 190 staff and contractors currently at a number of sites around Mount Maunganui.

The building work is expected to take about four months and will include landscaping and planting to attract birds and minimise the impact with more trees and plants on the site.

It is expected the temporary lease will still allow the community to continue to use the balance of the land as a park, and The Little Big Markets will continue to operate on the site.

Simon says the two year measure has been put in place while Zespri considers the long-term alternatives available, including potentially redeveloping its current site at the former Mount Maunganui Borough Council chambers.

'Zespri will consider the range of viable sites in the region for our new long-term offices once the council's strategic review of our current site is finalised,” he says.

'We're committed to staying in the Bay of Plenty region, which supplies around 80 per cent of New Zealand's kiwifruit, with the industry contributing around 20 per cent of the region's GDP.”