The Lillis Group’s Dockside development plan includes 52 apartments, 374 square metres of café space, an office, gym and rooftop function area.

The proposed five-story building on 2-6 Marina Drive is currently under review after plans were altered to include a multilevel car park on the site.

The proposed site of the development is currently vacant.

Peter Villis, the development director of Dockside Port Vincent, told InDaily the group had conducted market research which led them to decide Port Vincent needed a development of the type.

“We’ve had various hoteliers review it, and it fits the market,” Villis said.

Villis said the development would be principally short-stay apartment living, saying there had already been interest from “a number of national and international hotel groups”.

Renders of the planned Port Vincent complex. Screenshot via planning documents submitted for the Lillis Group

“Port Vincent Marina, with Dockside, is in my view destined to be the best in class coastal resort complex,” he said.

“We’ve designed it effectively on the tourism market. The Yorke Peninsula tourism market is principally people going to their shacks and, overwhelmingly, any studies that are done [show] there’s demand for a higher class accommodation.”

Port Vincent has a population under 500 but attracts many tourists and holidaymakers, with the Yorke Peninsula as a whole contributing $239 million to South Australia’s 2023 tourism expenditure of $10.1 billion.

The Peninsula saw a total of 530,000 overnight visitors in 2023, 88 per cent from intrastate, 11 per cent from interstate and 2 per cent from overseas.

During the year, 664,000 day trips to the Yorke Peninsula occurred, equating to a spend of $129 million.

Villis said the development was aimed at benefiting locals as well as visitors.

“We did a lot of public consultation, and overwhelmingly, public support what we’re doing,” he said.

Renders of the planned Port Vincent complex. Screenshot via planning documents submitted for the Lillis Group

“We also intend to incorporate a club facility for the local community, so that it becomes their club.

“We’ve developed relationships and sponsor yachting activities, and we see it becoming a centrepiece for potentially major yachting events between Adelaide and Port Vincent. The waters of St Vincent Gulf have the ability or the potential to attract international yachting events.”

Villis said during public consultation the community had identified a number of changes they wanted to see in the area.

“One is the concept of a ferry coming into the marina. People are quite keen on the ferry, and it seems like it will be viable,” he said.

“If that occurs, it will improve all of Yorke Peninsula tourism activities.”

Villis said construction would begin within six months of council approval, which he anticipated would be achieved “in the next few months”. He said the construction would take around 12 months.

The new proposal is one of several planned developments for Port Vincent from the Lillis Group.