Part of Cockatoo Island, which boasts more than 160 years of maritime history, may be re-established as a modern-day maritime precinct.

The 2.5 hectare Docks Precinct on Cockatoo Island is being offered for lease by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. Known as Sutherland Dock area during the island’s shipbuilding heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, it includes 15 buildings with 4500m2 floorspace and a 400m stretch of wharf frontage.
 
“We’re looking for suitably qualified tenants to lease, develop and operate a maritime precinct to complement other activities we have on the island,” the Harbour Trust’s executive director Geoff Bailey said.
 
“We already have small cultural, accommodation and tourism businesses operating. A maritime precinct would complement them and also acknowledge the island’s maritime past,” he said.
 
Mr Bailey said it was a rare chance to lease a significant Sydney Harbour waterfront site and that the Harbour Trust would consider leasing the site to either one or a number of individual operators. He said it would most likely appeal to existing maritime operators, specialist maritime developers and complementary businesses.
 
First opened to the public in 2007, Cockatoo Island was Australia’s biggest shipyard last century and the first of its two dry docks was built in the 1850s. Since 2001, the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust has completed extensive remediation to the Docks Precinct, conducting considerable site services work there.
 
“New public maritime facilities – including short-stay berthing for small vessels, a pontoon and roll on/roll off barge ramp – sit alongside a flooded dry dock and some unusual workshop buildings. Those buildings are available to be adapted or improved and we’re open to innovative proposals about how to use them,” Mr Bailey said.
 
Revenue from leasing contributes to conserving, protecting and improving public access to Sydney Harbour Federation Trust lands.