After years of planning, work on the new marina berths in Whangārei should start this quarter and they are expected to inject at least $10 million a year into the Northland economy.

A Northland-based company
will undertake the $20m project, just up the harbour from Limeburner’s Creek and accessed off Port Rd, and at least 94 people are expected to be employed during the construction phase.

The Whangārei Harbour Marina Management Trust is building 114 berths just downstream of the Te Matau ā Pohe bascule bridge and the clearing of mangroves and dredging works will start in March and take a year to complete.

The new marinas can accommodate boats up to 35 metres long and an office building with parking will be built on a reclaimed area as part of the project.

Resource consent for the works runs until 2054.

Seven berths on a 28-year lease had been sold – all to Northlanders – as of Monday and 19 reserved since sales to raise capital started two days before Christmas last year.

The trust hopes to raise $15m from the sale of berths while the Whangārei District Council has lent $5m.

Trust assistant manager Sharron Beck says what would delay the project the most was reclamation, which needed to settle before work on the building begins.

She said berths would be ready in the final quarter of next year while other work would be ongoing.

An increase in demand for berthing, particularly for larger yachts the Town Basin has difficulty accommodating, has promoted the trust to build the new berths.

“Boats are just getting bigger and bigger. We chose to put in a few catamaran multi-hull boats so they take up more space. There may be final tweaks depending on what boats want to come in,” Beck said.

She said the trust may have three more marina staff, which wasn’t huge, unlike visiting yachts and the amount they spent locally.

“The vessels that come in from overseas spend $50,000 to $60,000 per season on all their refit work, stocking up. We’ve got an ever-expanding number of businesses on Port Rd that are really orientated to this, and we’ve got six haul-out yards in town.

“Everybody wants it [new berths] to happen. Once this project is completed, then we might look at putting more berths [in] but it won’t be for quite some time, maybe in 10 years’ time we’ll start doing more at Kissing Point.”

The trust has 109 moorings at Kissing Point and a 173-berth marina at the Town Basin.

“We have a lot of connections through the Pacific. We promote Whangārei right from Panama, Mexico all the way as boats are travelling across and if they know there’s an opportunity for actual berths to tie up to, they’ll come,” Beck said.

“Boating is ever-increasing and the main thing is Auckland hasn’t got enough space for the demand so that’s where we’re expecting a lot of boats to come up. We’ve been turning away some of these big boats and it feels a real shame”.

She said the advantages of the new berths included dedicated car parking, a position downstream of Te Matau ā Pohe bridge which meant the bridge would not need to open, and walking distance to shopping, dining and marine services.

According to a report prepared by Market Economics around 2019, the local economy is expected to earn $9.4m each year on berthing fees, retail spending, and tourism-related activities once the marina is fully functional. But Beck said that figure would rise to well over $10m, partly due to high inflation.

The Northland Regional Council publicly notified the consent application for the new marinas and associated work in September 2018 and eight of the 10 submissions received supported the venture.

Those wishing to buy berths can go to www.whangareimarina.com/okara-marina, or pop into the marina office in the Town Basin.