Commercial Scaffolding – Catalina Restaurant, Rose Bay

This month Stronghold Hire was asked to help on a project at Catalina’s restaurant, Rose Bay.

A Rose Bar Area Landmark

Catalina’s Restaurant is a very well-known beautiful restaurant on the edge of the water in Sydney Harbour. Once the home of the glamorous nightclub Caprice opened in the late 1950’s the space became dilapidated by the 1990s.
The restaurant was bought and transformed in 1994 where it has grown in reputation and is somewhat of a landmark in the Rose Bay area.

Scaffolding for Renovation Work

Catalina is now undergoing some renovation work which partly involves the replacement of the grease trap – this is where Stronghold Hire came in to assist.
A scaffold was required to assist in the hand demolition of the surrounding walls and structure of the grease trap. This would usually be a very straightforward scaffold design except for the fact that the restaurant is built over the water on several concrete piers.

Scaffolding With The Tide

The client required a crash deck underneath the restaurant to catch debris, preventing it from falling into the waterways of the iconic Sydney Harbour. The crash deck also required access so that tradesmen could disconnect and run temporary services underneath. No scaffold would be able to be erected from the seabed as it was sand and not rock. We also had the rise and fall of the tide to factor in plus the restaurant was to always remain operational!

Water’s Edge Scaffolding

Stronghold Hire has worked alongside the water’s edge and faced these types of challenges before, an example would be the project at Snapper Island in 2019.

7 Day Turnaround

A different system was originally planned for the crash deck, but it became apparent that it would not work. Therefore, we were only given a 7-day turnaround to provide a quote, engineered drawings and start on site.

Scaffolding Design

The design that was agreed upon involved taking the weight of the scaffold through the concrete piers and installing long 8m aluminium ladder beams from which the scaffold would be suspended. The installation of the beams was to be done from a punt supplied by the client, however, this had to be replaced by a smaller dinghy for the final stages of the beam work. All boards were to be locked into place using board locks and galvanized wire thread. Once the crash deck and scaffold was complete we were then asked to provide stair access to the roof and a bridge to serve as temporary access to the staff.

Another Successful Project

The crash deck, demolition scaffold, bridge and stair access were all completed within five working days, another successful scaffold project!