The iconic Jacaranda House at Tauranga Hospital is being torn down as it has a low engineer rating – meaning it has a high likelihood to be badly damaged in an earthquake.

Waikato Demolition has been called into to tear down the building, which used to house nurses before hosting an array of clinics from 2005.

Demolition of Jacaranda House. Photo: Bruce Barnard.

Project manager and Waikato Demolition owner Andrew Proudlock says they have done a soft strip and removed all the construction and demolition material - timber, gib board, skirtings, architraves and all the things that make the inside look pretty.

'What we have left is the concrete and our programme is in June to have it on the ground. Apart from the last couple of days where we couldn't use the high reach we are on programme.” Andrew says once they stripped out the main shell, they moved onto the concrete structure.

'We recycle all the concrete and all the steel is being recycled as well.”

He says 99 per cent of the buildings his company is pulling down today have low engineer ratings.

'Effectively, it's not strong enough to maintain to let you get out safely.

'I think this building has a lot of history for people in Tauranga and from our perspective, it's a high profile site and obviously we are very safety conscious with a lot of the public walking around but apart from that we just do what we are contracted to do and get it done safely and cleaned up so the next exciting phase of the course can start.”