Construction of what will be Queanbeyan's tallest building is expected to be completed in just a few months after years of delays.
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Furlong Apartments, a nine-storey residential tower in the CBD, will give buyers the opportunity to live in the border city's highest homes.
The complex will have six levels of apartments on top of three storeys of car parking, public toilets and two commercial tenancies in the form of restaurants or cafes.
The Queanbeyan City Council approved the project in 2009 but work did not start until 2012 and was held up again in early 2013 over an internal dispute at the company that owns the site.
Construction was ramped up after that and the development is anticipated to be completed at the end of May with the first residents moving in soon after.
Apart from its height the feature that sets this development apart from all others in the region is the dilapidated 1850s house that is being fully restored as part of the complex.
Furlong House, which is one of the city's oldest homes, is a Georgian terrace residence built for William Hunt, who owned the first licensed establishments in Queanbeyan.
Project co-ordination general foreman Vesa Voutilainen said the restoration work on the house was about 70 per cent complete.
He said the workers had tried to restore as much of the historic residence as possible but had had to order some replica windows from Sydney as the originals were too decayed.
Mr Voutilainen said the house was in quite dangerous condition when they first began to work on it.
''It had been left as a derelict building for so long, but it will come up really nicely,'' he said.
Once restored the house will remain on the strata title of the Furlong Apartments but it will be sold for use as a small office.
It does not have running water but workers will be able to use the facilities inside the apartment block.
Residents of the 42-apartment complex will have to walk around the house to get into the building or enter through the car park with their vehicles.
LJ Hooker Queanbeyan sales agent Chris Farmer said the development provided an interesting melding of the old with the new, which made it a rare site. ''This will be the tallest building in Queanbeyan and it's the second oldest house,'' he said.
Mr Farmer said about 27 of the apartments had been sold off the plan but five top-level penthouses and four sub-penthouses would be released only when the building was completed.
The exception was a two-bedroom sub-penthouse that sold for a record $575,000 about two years ago.
The penthouse apartments, which have sweeping views over Queanbeyan and the region, are expected to hit the market at the end of May.
Mr Farmer said the first residents should move in at this time.
A display unit is expected to be completed by the start of April.
This part of Queanbeyan is set for more change during 2014 with a council spokesman confirming a development application for a Dan Murphy's liquor store across the road from the apartments.
The former site of The Queanbeyan Age in Crawford Street will eventually be home to an eight-storey development with 40 residential units.
The council approved a development application for this project in 2004.