The council spent $600,000 from a property fund to buy the site, which had an existing 200sq m building, in November 2016. That building is being used to store maritime equipment, including two boats.
Work on the $500,000, new 400sq m storage facility divided into eight bays, and associated site redevelopment, is being carried out by Whangarei-based Arco Construction.
Mr Shepherd said the council had ''made do'' with a leased storage for more than a decade, but had outgrown it in recent years due to a substantial increase in field work and associated equipment.
"Among the many items we now need to store are extra boats, vessel quarantine facilities, oil spill equipment, bikes, trailers, kayaks, monitoring buoys, furniture, traps, poisons, events equipment, Civil Defence emergency gear, hydrology, air quality and farm dairy effluent equipment and various tools."
The new site is easily accessible to Port Rd and Marsden Cove boat ramps as well as State Highways 1 and 14.
With the bulk of the regional council's 180-plus staff based in its Whangarei head office, the development of a centrally located facility made sense both economically and practically, Mr Shepherd said.
"While initially it's not cheap to develop a facility like this, it's very important to ensure our essential equipment is stored safely and securely in one central, easily-accessible site.''
