A woman who worked in The Press building felt unsafe in it prior to the roof collapse which killed a colleague.
Credit controller Naomi Magee told the royal commission into the Canterbury earthquakes she was surprised that staff were working in the building before the deadly February 22 earthquake last year.
The roof of the building collapsed in the quake, killing fellow employee Adrienne Lindsay.
Ms Magee worked on the fourth floor of the building in Cathedral Square and said she had misgivings about working there after an aftershock on Boxing Day 2010.
"I was quite astonished that we were in the building and remember thinking, 'How can we be in here?'," she said.
"We felt unsafe in that building," Fairfax reported her telling the commission.
She said she had discussed her fears over cracks in the floor and walls with colleagues.
The building was red-stickered after the December 26 aftershock, but was reoccupied on January 10 last year after remedial work and before the council removed its sticker.
The newspaper's general manager Andrew Boyle told the commission management decided to move back in after an engineering report said repairs had been completed and the building was safe.
NZN