Wakatipu Community Maritime Preservation Society Society chairman Tony Butson last week confirmed restoration of the boat shed into a working maritime museum was ready to begin.
"It's a great feeling and it's come about from hard work from a dedicated group of people who have identified the heritage value of all this," Mr Butson said.
"Most people think it's just an old corrugated iron shed, but we have been able to identify lots of the heritage involved and it's quite exciting."
Its dual slipway was proposed to be used for boat restoration, with its ticket office as a new cafe and outdoor seating subleased to make the complex self-sustaining.
The boat shed was built in the 1930s, while the former New Zealand Railways ticket office servicing the steamers docking at the marina most likely dated back to between 1869 and 1878.
Mr Butson said the first steps would be to prepare the site for initial work and check how much of the structure could be restored "as some of it is a bit dodgy and needs to be replaced".
He said the restoration was expected to be completed by May.
The not-for-profit incorporated society had been battling to save the buildings from demolition since 2005 and last April was given approval for a 33-year lease on the dilapidated Queenstown Lakes District Council-owned site.
Since then, the society had to finalise the lease with council, get building consent and final resource consent and source the final amount of funding needed.
It already had $465,000 from the Central Lakes Trust, the Community Trust of Southland, the First Sovereign Trust, the society's six committee members and 60 members and fundraising efforts. Mr Butson said the remainder of the $700,000 required had been topped up by a Lotto grant and New Zealand Railways, but he could not supply the exact figures.
Construction would be managed by Triple Star, "with lots of contractors and tradesmen volunteering their services and materials for the project", he said.
