THE shipwrights and paint blasters of repair and chandlery business Rosshaven Marine are the proud new tenants of a "first-class" facility at the Townsville Port's $110 million marine precinct.

The business opens for trade on Monday and while the work to build marina walls, workshops and thousands of square metres of new hardstand areas continues, the port yesterday celebrated Rosshaven's arrival.

"Today is a great day," Rosshaven chairman Arthur Johnson said.

"This is the culmination of probably 15 years of discussions and negotiations with the port and the State (Government).

"It's been a hard road sometimes but today, it's well done. I think the facility that has been built is just first class."

In this photograph, the Rosshaven directors and staff are standing in front of the main workshop - a huge undercover building that can accommodate the firm's 180-tonne and 68-tonne ship lifters.

The main quad-folding door, manufactured in New Zealand, is 19m wide and more than 13m high and is understood to be one of the largest of its kind in Australia. Electrically driven, it can also be operated by hand because of counter weighting.

Rosshaven general manager Chris Helps said the whole structure, which included annexes on either side for engine repair, machining and fitting, and boiler making and ship repairs, had been built to category five rating.

The company has a two-level chandlery and administration building and a blast bay where Pacific Island patrol boats are currently in for servicing.

It is a far cry from the antiquated former port leased facilities off Fifth Avenue in Ross River destined to be new multi-lane public boat ramps.

While the move was driven by construction of a low-level port access road bridge at the mouth of Ross River, impeding access for vessels with clearance higher than 6m, port chairman Ross Dunning was buoyant about prospects for the precinct's returns to the State and for Townsville.

Not only would the precinct guarantee about 600 existing jobs, he said there was potential to double that employment. "You can see that growing easily over the space of three to four years to 1200, particularly as the navy brings its vessels in during 2013-14," he said.

The port's berth 10 is being upgraded and expanded to accommodate the navy's amphibious support ships and there are arguments to position the ships here for longer than army exercises.

Mr Dunning said the outlook for the port and the precinct was great.

"We'd expect a rail connection to be constructed alongside the (port) road connection in the very near future," he said.

A host of resource projects is lining up for port space from Legend International Holdings proposal for fertiliser production, Guildford Coal's coal export plan, Curtain Bros' iron ore project at Mount Moss, CuDeco's Cloncurry copper project and current expansion from Xstrata's base metal and new iron ore exports.