Boats will be moored in the Shell Cove boat harbour in 2019, according to latest estimates released by Shellharbour City Council.
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The current program of works predicts that building of the boat harbour will be completed by 2018 and it will be open to the ocean in 2019 – two years earlier than a recent feasibility study predicted.
After a slow few years in the wake of the global financial crisis, work on the $1.5-billion Shell Cove project has been ramped up this year after the first sod was turned on the boat harbour in January.
Albion Park firm Coastwide Civil is transforming the Shell Cove landscape as part of the $150-million first stage of works.
The project is a joint venture between the Shellharbour council and development company Australand.
Australand's Shell Cove development director, Glenn Colquhoun, said stage one was on track to be finished by March next year.
He said the stage one works included excavating the western portion of the harbour, reprocessing and stockpiling material, surcharge mounds, and works on the land component of the breakwater in the beach zone.
"The next two to three years will be very busy," Mr Colquhoun said.
"We have the boat harbour under construction and we are also planning for the first stage of the retail component and the master plan for the village centre.
"We expect to start work on the first stage of residential in the boat harbour precinct.
"And we expect Warrigal Care to commence construction on their retirement village.
"The village centre will be the core hub and focus of Shell Cove from a community perspective, and will include a retail component - supermarket, speciality shops, hotel - and community facilities, a town square and some high-density residential.
He said the company had been through a public tender process and was looking to appoint an architect who would "evolve the current master plan, look how the retail will work and how to activate the harbour foreshore and make it a place that people will want to come".
Mr Colquhoun said Australand planned to lodge a development application for the first residential stage in the boat harbour precinct in the second half of this year.
"We will be developing and selling product in that first stage in 2015 and that will include medium-density housing product and standard residential lots."
Shell Cove commercial manager Kevin James, who has worked on the project for 28 years, said he had seen Shell Cove evolve from an idea into a vibrant community.
Last month, a 10-lot stage release on Caravel Crescent sold out on the morning of the land release, with demand outstripping supply.
"Construction work on the boat harbour has certainly helped sales," Mr James said.
HOW IT’S SHAPING
• Boat harbour to be built in four stages, initially expected to take between five and eight years.
• Breakwater will be 467metres long and 10metres deep at the head.
• The 20-hectare harbour will include an 800-metre timber boardwalk and 300 floating berths.
• Between 45 and 68 workers are on site each day undertaking the civil works.
• In the three months to April30, 93per cent of workers on the project were from the Illawarra.