How Launceston's Seaport was built from a 'run-down wasteland'

Shipping identity Les Dick was building a new vessel in the dry dock, about where Mudbar sits today.

Paint was blowing across the road into Errol Stewart's caryard.

"I knew Les pretty well. That's what started the idea that I would try and buy him out," Mr Stewart said.

Plans to replace an old wharf with a $30 million restaurant and accommodation complex were in full swing by 2000.

By then, Mr Stewart had plans to buy out the former Van Dongen shipyard, and owned much of the stretch from Charles Street bridge to Home Point.

There was just one question - who would help pay for it?

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"Twenty years ago you could borrow $10 million to go and build a factory up the road, but to build a riverside waterfront development - particularly over there - was like 'you're a lunatic'," Mr Stewart said.

"No commercial bank would lend me any money, no matter what I told them."

The answer came through a late-night, red wine-infused conversation with Mr Stewart's long-time friend Chris Morris, the billionaire founder of Computershare.

Mr Morris lent $10 million towards the project and still owns a share in the development, while City of Launceston chipped in about $1.25 million.

"I couldn't have done it without the assistance of three tiers of government," Mr Stewart said.

And if I hadn't have had him [Mr Morris] it probably wouldn't have been there either."

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Construction began in February 2001.

Standing alongside Mr Stewart and Launceston mayor John Lees, then-premier Jim Bacon heralded the project as having "major importance to Northern Tasmania".

"It has the twin benefits of beautifying a dilapidated, run-down industrial wasteland while creating jobs," he said.

Mr Stewart had the vision to build a three-storey hotel using the dry dock's foundations.

He tracked down engineering drawings of the dry dock and presented them to engineer Jim Gandy.

The dry dock - "a big empty hole underneath" - remains under the hotel to this day.

"Everybody told me around here that [Jim was] the best engineer and the cleverest one for a project like this," Mr Stewart said.

"He got the drawings out and said if you do this this and this you can use the foundations and he charged me three bob for it - hardly anything realistically."

A boardwalk was built connecting Seaport and Royal Park, and eight land blocks were sold for new residential homes.

Twenty-four apartments were built and sold off and the hotel build was finished by late 2003.

It opened in March 2004.

Most would agree the development has changed Launceston for the better - even if not everything went to plan.

"The first little building which was originally built for the rowing club - that didn't work so it ended up becoming a gymnasium, an office building, now a restaurant [Rupert and Hound]," Mr Stewart said.

"That probably didn't turn out as we envisaged it might.

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"The only thing now is the marina's probably not in a good space because the silt builds up and there's no appetite to clean the silt.

"Half the time the boats sit on mud so that's a bit disappointing.

"The purists of the world don't want us to [fix] it. The environmentalists of the world have said 'you can't touch the mud, you've got to leave the mud as it is'.

"I think there's some danger in that, but so be it."

Twenty years on, Seaport remains a pillar of business, accommodation and leisure in Launceston.

Mr Stewart is sober in assessing its success and future.

"At the time it was challenging - and a bit before its time perhaps," he said.

"All cities in the world have waterfront that's not dissimilar to Launceston.

"But the Seaport was probably the thing that put our construction firm on the map, and perhaps me as a developer."

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