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LONDON: A retirement village is to be woven into the fabric of a newly designed community start-up.

A sleepy Tasmanian beach hamlet would become the Mediterranean jewel in the East Coast crown under plans involving the redevelopment of a historic 1830s shop, a residential subdivision and 225-unit retirement village, its proponent says.

Red Panda Property Group director Andrew McCullagh said he wants to bring back Swansea’s glory days of old, when it hosted sailing regattas and multi-day fishing competitions.

“I believe that Swansea is equal to coastal areas of the Mediterranean, with accompanying lifestyle and appreciation of fine dining and wine,” Mr McCullagh, who maintains addresses in Swansea, Sandy Bay and Longford, said.

“Swansea used to be vibrant community, I found a 1930s newspaper the other day and the town was packed out for a two-day fishing competition.

“They had sailing regattas on the bay, I’m trying to bring all that stuff back.”

Mr McCullagh, a newly elected Northern Midlands councillor, has two parallel developments on the go, either of which would be transformative but together represent a new vision for the town.

The more progressed plan of the two is the redevelopment of the heritage-listed Morris General Store, constructed in 1838 and associated for 150 years with five generations of the Morris family.

Red Panda plans to install a boutique 10-room hotel, a wine and tapas bar, a top-level home for a future sailing club, a delicatessen, and five luxury townhouses overlooking Great Oyster Bay, each with a starting price tag of $2.75m.

A sheltered courtyard would landscaped between the main building and the townhouses, with additional small-scale retail opportunities.

Mr McCullagh said he had scaled back the development after considerable conferencing with Heritage Tasmania regarding the original two-storey sandstone building. This has delayed the lodgement of a development application.

Architect Dominic Gaetani, from Tasmania originally and currently senior associate at Melbourne firm DKO, said making the heritage building sing was front of mind.

“Swansea’s existing context and built form character have informed the proposed architecture,” Mr Gaetani said.

“The local heritage character, existing forms, scale, and materiality have been reinterpreted to generate a contemporary yet respectful outcome.”

Under the plans, the existing Morris’ IGA store would be relocated to a new shopping precinct at Red Banks Estate, 13512B Tasman Hwy, Swansea.

That site would feature a circa 100-lot residential subdivision, a new building for Morris’ IGA and associated retail and hospitality, and, eventually, a 225-unit retirement village, Mr McCullagh said.

He said he planned develop a significant proportion of the new dwellings himself and retain some to provide affordable rentals under a built-to-rent model.

“People can’t get staff here because rent is through the roof,” Mr McCullagh said.

He will lodge the development application for the relocated Morris’ IGA and associated shops separately to the residential subdivision, which will itself be separate to any future retirement village.