O’Connells’ $26 million revamp is finally complete.

After three years’ planning, Skyline Enterprises Ltd pushed go on the CBD building overhaul in February, 2020.

Initially, it’d been hoped new tenant DFS Group, which has taken over two floors inside the four-level building, would have opened its doors by June this year — that was pushed to October 1, before it opened on October 29.

This week, the first bites were served in Skyline’s lower-level food hall, dubbed Eatspace.

A subsidiary of Skyline’s to operate Souvla, serving Greek street food, and Lemon & Salt, serving seafood, both opening soon.

It’ll also run Casetta, an Italian trattoria, which is open, along with The Sushi Platter, operated by long-time Queenstown business Hikari, Korean fried chicken restaurant Monster Chicken, and former O’Connells tenant, Thai restaurant Bronze Elephant.

Meantime, ‘Bar Central’, in the middle of the space, is being operated by hospitality entrepreneur Pete Jefford, who also owns Brazz, The London, Pier, Boardwalk and The Crown Pub and Beer Garden, with a separate tenancy, likely to be a burger bar, still to come.

Skyline property and accommodation manager Alastair Clifford says they’re ‘‘really proud’’ of the finished product, particularly given the issues they’ve had to deal with because of Covid, which threw a spanner in the works just six weeks after getting started.

He pays credit to head contractor Naylor Love and the large number of subbies for their work to get the building finished and open almost on time, as well as the community at large for enduring the work and disruption it caused, at times.

‘‘We’re really proud of what we created down there and we think it’ll be well received.’’

Clifford says opening hours, at the moment, are 11am till 8pm, seven days a week, but it’ll eventually be open from 10am to 10pm daily.

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