Mandurah Ocean Marina

An award-winning, mixed-use marina transforming the coastal city of Mandurah into a Western Australia tourism and residential centre of choice.

The Client
LandCorp – the Western Australia Government’s land development agency - in partnership with the City of Mandurah and the Peel Development Commission.

Scope of Work
The delivery of triple bottom-line sustainability outcomes in a world-class, residential and recreational marina incorporating two harbours, protective sea walls, an attractive waterside parade of shops, cafes and restaurants and servicing the needs of more than 7,000 boat owners. The South Harbour development incorporates distinctive Venetian-style waterways – a concept introduced by Benchmark Projects.

Challenges
The project had been hamstrung by a raft of community, engineering and environmental issues for 30 years until Benchmark Projects was brought in by LandCorp. Developing a unified master plan and getting the multiple stakeholders behind the vision was just the start. The team faced numerous environmental, engineering and logistical challenges, including the dewatering of the north and south harbour basins.

Innovations and Solutions

• Dewatering and remediation of the contaminated areas of the harbour basin (the largest scale operation of its kind in WA) requiring 5 billion litres of water to be pumped from the harbours at a rate of approximately 30 million litres a day into a specifically created dewatering bund.


• The creation of a protected nesting ground of migratory fairy terns (seabirds) and relocation of marine life to a holding pool during the dewatering operation – including moving 10,000 blue manna crabs, a species emblematic of Mandurah.


• An existing seawall was upgraded and a buried seawall was constructed to defend against erosion.

The marina has become a major draw for the Peel Region transforming the fortunes of Mandurah’s housing market (recording an average growth of 27 per cent over the last five years) and its tourism pull.

The development has created more than 600 ongoing employment opportunities and will have injected more than $900 million into the local economy over 20 years.

The development has earned a string of design and environmental awards, including the prestigious 2007 Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) National Award for Excellence for a Master-Planned Development, as well as the 2004 Australian Marina of the Year title. It also took home the 2003 CASE Earth Award for Environmental and Construction Excellence.