Prepared for Prepared for BRIG Matt Quinn
May 2026
From remote resources and energy projects to city-shaping infrastructure, we've built thousands of quality assets and facilities.
Engineering-led, our expertise has grown steadily to span building, civil, electrical, fabrication, marine, mechanical, pipelines, rail, tunnel and underground construction..
We also understand that construction today is as much about community and sustainability as it is about concrete and steel. Our unwavering objective and commitment is to deliver what we promise to our customers, while protecting and enhancing our people, the community and the environment.
Our services encompass the complete project lifecycle—from early concept design to commissioning and ongoing maintenance. We tailor each solution to suit our customer's specific project objectives and preferred delivery approach.
We refined the initial concept design and constructed a new outer wharf structure at HMAS Coonawarra in Darwin to support the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The project involved the construction of a new 250 m long wharf and two approach jetties.
While the final structures are simple in their geometry and configuration, the site location and operational requirements were challenging.
Improving marine infrastructure for nine Pacific Island countries as part of the Australian Government’s Pacific Maritime Security Programme (PMSP) fits perfectly with our vision: Providing a Better Life.
This project also demonstrated our ability to deliver logistically challenging marine projects across the Pacific.
In 2025, we completed infrastructure upgrades for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade (MFAT) in Tonga and Samoa, and this year, we are starting projects in Fiji and Papua New Guinea.
In a joint venture with our vertical colleagues, Built Environs, we have been contracted to build new diplomatic facilities in Suva and Port Moresby.
Auckland City Hospital is a complex stakeholder environment with patients, staff, specialist service providers, emergency vehicles and a helicopter pad all intersecting within a small footprint in central Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.
The project team planned the construction method to suit the 24/7 live hospital environment and minimise disruption to stakeholders by creating a custom traffic management plan, including an access ramp so large vehicles like trucks could be separated from hospital traffic.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (TQEH) has been modernised and its emergency, critical care, and surgical capabilities have been significantly enhanced with the construction of a new five-level (plus basement) clinical services building.
The building features a 46-bay emergency department, 12 operating theatres, a 14-bed intensive care unit, a 52-bed rehabilitation unit, four procedure rooms, recovery spaces, a central sterile supply department, a medical imaging department, a catheterisation laboratory, a pathology laboratory and staff support areas.
McConnell Dowell's building brand, Built Environs, was the Managing Contractor for the Modbury Hospital Upgrade – one of the most complex hospital redevelopments undertaken in South Australia.
This program of work was focussed on improving access to patient care and enhancing the design of the hospital to meet contemporary needs and models of care.
Built Environs constructed 432 contemporary accommodation units at RAAF Base Edinburgh as part of the Plenary Living consortium under a public-private partnership (PPP) with the Federal Government.
This included nine three-storey and 11 single-storey buildings, forming the South Australian part of the Single LEAP (Living Environment and Accommodation Precinct) Phase 2 project. Each of the 432 single-bedroom apartments featured an open plan living and study area, an ensuite bathroom and kitchenette.
The Oval Hotel is a 138-room boutique hotel designed to integrate seamlessly into the existing iconic Adelaide Oval. It is the first hotel in Australia to be integrated into a stadium.
The hotel comprises 90 standard rooms, 39 premium rooms, 7 accessible rooms, and 2 king suites across five stories. The reception pod spans between the north and south wings and is located above the stadiums East Gate. The hotel offers panoramic views of St Peter's Cathedral, Elder Park, River Torrens, the Adelaide skyline and the Mount Lofty Ranges.
Our ability to solve technical challenges creatively, means we find ways of delivering complex civil structures with minimal disruption to the community and our customers' operations.
We've been working with the Auckland International Airport team since January 2019 to maintain and improve critical assets, including upgrading live jet fuel pipelines, renewing runway pavements, and much more.
We have also worked on vertical construction projects, including the new airport upgrade with subsidiary Built Environs.
We delivered the Archer River Crossing project for Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) in remote, Far North Queensland.
The Archer River Crossing is one part of the broader Cape York Region Package (CYRP) Stage 2, which is jointly funded by the Australian and Queensland governments under the Roads of Strategic Importance program.
We resurfaced the runway at Pago Pago Airport to improve its condition rating, and raise the shoulder edge by four inches to meet FAA requirements for international airports. Our work included a complete survey of the existing site; construction of Runway 5-23, the shoulder pavement, two taxiway and turning node pavements and paint-marking.
This was our eighth airport project in the Pacific Islands and followed our successful completion of the USD6.7 million rehabilitation and extension of Runway 8-26 in 2007 and the Taxiway Alpha Rehabilitation in 2011.
Working in collaboration with the Port of Melbourne, we successfully completed four contracts at Swanson Dock between 2017 and 2020.
After completing the award winning Port Capacity Project, we continued our partnership with Port of Melbourne with a series of smaller contracts to rehabilitate the iconic Swanson Dock - the heart of Australia's busiest container terminal.
We revolutionised the design and construction of large-scale marine infrastructure when we delivered the Chith Export Facility - a large, complex and remotely located project for Rio Tinto at their Amrun bauxite mine, south of Weipa in Far North Queensland.
The facility comprises a 650 m access jetty, a 350 m loading wharf and an onshore conveyor system. Innovatively designed by Jacobs and constructed by us in just 10 months, modularisation was at the heart of the solution and our project team took it to new levels in scale and breadth.
From wharves and jetties to ocean outfalls, breakwaters, and submarine pipelines — we bring coastal confidence to every project.
Our modular approach to construction has helped create productive ports for clients like Rio Tinto, FMG, Vale, and BHP, where over 1.2 billion tonnes of iron ore are shipped annually from wharves we built.
We thrive in complex, operational environments — delivering innovative temporary works and safe, efficient methods that protect people, environment, and productivity. From purpose-built barges to proven marine systems, we engineer safe harbours with precision and care.
At McConnell Dowell, we don’t just build marine infrastructure — we deliver it with certainty, creativity, and a commitment to results.
We're delivering the Eyre Peninsula Desalination Plant Marine Works for SA Water.
This project plays a key role in supporting a more reliable and climate independent water supply for the Eyre Peninsula, reducing reliance on the Uley South Basin and preparing the region for future growth.
Following a destructive tropical cyclone, we were engaged by South32 to urgently restore and rebuild the cyclone-damaged GEMCO Wharf on Groote Eylandt. In less than 12 months, our project team achieved a major milestone—restarting operations after an intense and fast-tracked program of works.
To meet the challenge, we mobilised a sophisticated marine fleet from across Australia, Singapore, and the UAE. This included two large jack-up barges (Santa Fe and Pauline), two smaller jack-ups (Sealift 2 and Sealift 6), a 250-tonne crane barge, three flattop storage barges, and a support fleet of tugs and work punts. The mobilisation alone was a feat of logistics, setting the stage for a highly coordinated recovery effort.
We designed and constructed the marine structures for BCI Minerals’ Mardie Salt & Potash Project in Western Australia, using our innovative canti-traveller system for speed and low impact delivery.
The 'Mardie' Project is a large-scale, solar evaporation operation on the Pilbara coast. Capacity of the completed facility is estimated to be 5.35 million tonnes per annum of high purity salt and 140,000 tonnes per annum of sulphate of potash, over an operating life of at least 60 years.
We upgraded the Queen Sālote International Wharf in Nukau'alofa for the Tongan Ministry of Infrastructure between 2023 and 2025, on time and on budget, with zero LITs during the one million hours worked.
The wharf is Tonga’s only international port, a lifeline for the country, processing 95% of the country's imports and exports. This critical infrastructure upgrade modernised and climate-proofed the facility, increased capacity, and improved power, drainage and water services.
It's the technical problems and challenges solved behind the scenes by people empowered to think creatively and work collaboratively. It’s the alternative idea or innovation that saves time, reduces cost, makes us safer, and delivers more value.
It might not always be evident when you look at the end product, but it's there, inside every McConnell Dowell project.
In marine environments, where the margin for error is razor-thin, temporary works aren’t mere enablers—they’re foundational to safe, efficient delivery.
Take the Swanson Dock upgrade at the Port of Melbourne. Our temporary works team engineered an innovative fender access platform, earning the a WorkSafe Victoria award for “Best Solution to a Specific Workplace Health and Safety Issue”
Here’s what set it apart:
Why Temporary Works Matter
Prioritising safety at early design stages – Proactively engineering safe access platforms significantly diminishes risk in live marine settings.
Driving productivity through better access – Easier, safer access means faster cycle times and fewer quay-side delays.
Enabling precise engineering works – Demolition, rebar placement, and spraying all demand stable, safe working environments—temporary works deliver just that.
Promoting sustainability and reuse – Modular, reusable temporary works not only save time but also cut embodied carbon across projects.
By spotlighting temporary works as a core part of project delivery—not an afterthought—we’re reshaping how marine construction tackles safety, efficiency, and sustainability.
On the Granite Island Causeway Project in South Australia our team used the 'hand over hand' construction method to minimise environmental impacts and ensure delivery on time.
The 'hand over hand' method employs three concurrent work fronts:
As the structure advances out into the water it acts as a construction platform for the work crews to build the next stage. Each work front takes a similar duration, ensuring maximum certainty in productivity and schedule.
Analysis was conducted on various construction approaches during the tender phase, including the use of jack-up barges or a temporary bridge structure to facilitate construction. However, the 'hand over hand' method was the only one capable of achieving completion by the target date.
The other benefit of the method is its minimal footprint. Minimising the impact on the sensitive marine environment was a key consideration during the tender and design phases of the project.
The adoption of the method, along with the use of precast prestressed deck units which pushed the span out as far as possible, minimised the number of pile driving operations further reducing the impact on the marine environment.
The design and construction methodology was fit-for-purpose and extremely efficient. It resulted in on time and on budget completion and had a low impact on Victor Harbor's rich marine ecology.
Thank you for taking an interest in McConnell Dowell's skills, capabilities and approach. Additional information is available on our website, including additional project case studies.
Contact us through the link(s) below for advice or assistance with your project.