Rooftop bar, new hotel mooted for Port Hedland

A 300-room, four-star hotel planned by a Singaporean developer in Port Hedland’s historic west end would command panoramic views over the world’s largest bulk export port from the town’s first rooftop bar.

Centurion Corporation has submitted a development application for an eight-storey hotel on Anderson Street within the Hedland Maritime Precinct’s proposed business zone, which is primarily home to light industry.

The hotel would feature a ground-floor restaurant and rooftop bar overlooking the sprawling iron ore port at its doorstep.

Demand is expected to come from shutdown crews, mining executives, and tourists seeking a stopover on their way to Broome.

Designs are before the Western Australian Planning Commission and will be presented to Town of Port Hedland councillors at Wednesday’s council meeting.

Town officers have detailed a long list of recommendations, ranging from implementing occupancy time limits to stormwater management.

Under the Hedland Maritime Precinct plan, hotels are not among permitted uses in the business zone, however, its location is on the edge of the maritime zone where such a use would be allowed.

Town of Port Hedland officers have recommended that, should WAPC approve the project, the maritime zone boundary be extended to the other side of Anderson Street to encompass the site.

“Whilst the proposed hotel use may seem better suited to the maritime precinct to avoid land-use conflict, it is considered that the development can be accommodated in the present location on the edge of both precincts,” an officer’s note said in the council agenda.

“The subject site can form an important interface to both precincts along Anderson Street, between Darlot and Hardie streets and present an improved streetscape and entry to the portside precinct.”

The hotel would be split into three zones.

Executive and tourist accommodation on the west side would have views of the bucket-wheel reclaimers, loaders and bulk carriers hard at work in the port.

FIFO rooms are proposed for the eastern half.

Centurion’s application is the latest in a flurry of accommodation proposals in Port Hedland.

Gold Coast-based Azzura Investments is proposing a hotel at the golf course and 490-dwelling apartment complex in South Hedland, the first stage of which is due to break ground next year.

Freight company Campbell Transport in May gained approval to reopen the town’s mothballed detention centre as a workforce camp.

Compass Group has put forward plans for a $79 million, 301-room expansion of its Waypoint Village workforce camp and Radhey Enterprises is considering a 51-room tourist facility in South Hedland.

The Town of Port Hedland is also pushing the case for a 75-dwelling key workers village.

Centurion is listed on the Singapore and Hong Kong stock exchanges.

The firm holds a portfolio of 35 accommodation facilities, mostly in Singapore and Malaysia.

In Australia, Centurion runs a student tower in Adelaide and village in Melbourne.