Lake Havasu City Council voted 5-2 on January 13, 2026, to approve the general plan amendment and rezoning that clears the way for a 90-acre resort and residential project on the Island. That's the headline most people caught. What didn't travel as far is the sentence buried in the development agreement that actually controls when any of it gets built: construction on the resort itself is not expected to begin until after Lake Havasu City's second bridge to the Island is finished, not started, finished.
If you're comparing the Island against other Havasu neighborhoods right now, that distinction matters more than the vote count. Zoning approval tells you what's legally allowed to happen on that shoreline. It doesn't tell you when. The real clock on this project runs through a separate piece of infrastructure that, as of this month, is still in its design phase.
What the Council Actually Approved
The project is called Waterfront at Lake Havasu, though it also shows up in city planning documents under the name Pittsburgh Point. The site sits at 1040 McCulloch Boulevard North, just south of the Nautical Beachfront Resort, on land that used to be the Nautical Inn Golf Course before the course closed years ago and sat vacant.
The developer, FalconEye Ventures, bought the roughly 90 acres plus an additional 78 acres of right-of-way for $24 million at a 2023 state land auction, back when the parcel was zoned for a golf course and open space. Local reporting has pegged the eventual build-out cost around $400 million. The approved plan calls for a shoreline resort hotel, a marina with a boat launch, village-scale retail and restaurant space, and more than 300 residential units spanning single-family homes, townhomes, and apartments. An exact unit breakdown by type hasn't been finalized in anything public yet.
The rezoning itself moved the parcel from a parks and open space designation to a mix of commercial mixed use, resort residential, and a new category called Island Body Beach Planned Development. That rezoning came bundled with a formal development agreement that spells out infrastructure contributions and recorded public access easements, which is where the bridge language lives.
The Concessions That Got It Across the Line
The plan that passed in January wasn't the plan FalconEye first pitched. Between the initial public meetings in the fall of 2025 and the final vote, the developer made several changes in response to resident and Planning Commission feedback:
- Public shoreline access grew by roughly 85 percent, from about 9.8 acres in the original proposal to around 18 acres in the approved plan
- Gatehouses originally planned at the property entrances were removed
- A proposed gas station was eliminated from the site plan
- Commercial building locations were shifted and overall commercial intensity was reduced
- Open space within the development was increased
The Lake Havasu Area Chamber of Commerce's CEO spoke in support of the rezoning, telling the council that "this project brings amenities island residents have asked for." The vote wasn't unanimous. Two council members opposed both the general plan amendment and the rezoning, and the debate over shoreline access and growth was, by local reporting's account, one of the more contentious the council has handled in recent memory. Council member Nancy Campbell moved the general plan amendment that ultimately passed.
The Sentence That Actually Sets the Schedule
Here's the part that matters if you're timing a purchase around this project rather than just reading the headline. According to the development agreement's terms as reported before and after the January vote, construction on the resort itself will not begin until after the completion of the second bridge to the Island. Not groundbreaking on the bridge. Completion.
That's a meaningfully longer runway than most people assume when they hear a project got approved. A zoning vote is a legal green light. It says the use is now allowed. It says nothing about a construction crew showing up next spring, because in this case the agreement ties the resort's own construction start to a separate infrastructure project finishing first.
Where the Bridge Actually Stands Right Now
The second bridge has been discussed locally for more than two decades as a way to give the Island a second route on and off, connecting McCulloch Boulevard on the Island side to London Bridge Road on the mainland. It's funded through a $35.5 million state appropriation, secured through legislative work credited to State Representative Leo Biasiucci, and formalized through an intergovernmental agreement between the city and the Arizona Department of Transportation. The city has since awarded a preconstruction services contract to Ames Construction, with NV5 handling design.
The U.S. Coast Guard published a draft environmental assessment for the bridge's impact on channel navigation in April 2026, which is a real procedural step, not a formality that gets skipped. And according to the city's own project tracking page, the bridge's design is scheduled to reach completion this month, September 2026, with construction targeted to start in October 2026.
That's worth sitting with, because earlier 2026 reporting had construction penciled in for sometime in 2027, with design wrapping "this summer" in vaguer terms. The city's own current tracker has since tightened that to a specific October 2026 start. Whether that holds exactly on schedule is the kind of thing that can still shift with permitting or funding timing, but the direction of travel over the past several months has been toward an earlier date, not a later one.
Construction itself is expected to take up to two years once it starts. Lay both timelines next to each other and the picture gets clearer:
| Track | Milestone | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Resort zoning | Planning & Zoning Commission recommends approval (7-0) | December 3, 2025 |
| Resort zoning | City Council approves rezoning and development agreement (5-2) | January 13, 2026 |
| Second bridge | Design targeted for completion | September 2026 |
| Second bridge | Construction targeted to begin | October 2026 |
| Second bridge | Estimated construction duration | Up to two years |
| Resort | Earliest realistic construction start, per the development agreement's sequencing | Not before the bridge is finished |
Follow that math and the resort's own groundbreaking realistically lands somewhere around 2028, assuming the bridge stays roughly on its current track. That's a very different picture than "approved in January, so it's coming."
What This Means If You're Shopping the Island Right Now
None of this is a reason to write off the Island. If anything, the concessions the developer made during the public process, especially the expanded shoreline access and the removal of gated entrances, suggest the eventual project is being shaped with public use in mind rather than as a private enclave. That's a meaningful signal about the long-term character of that stretch of shoreline.
What it does mean is that you shouldn't price in resort amenities, new retail, or a marina as a near-term feature of Island life. The zoning is locked in. The construction isn't close. If you're evaluating a home on the Island today, the more useful thing to track isn't the resort's announcement calendar. It's the bridge's construction start date, because that's the actual trigger that puts the resort's own timeline in motion.
Does the bridge's funding depend on the resort project moving forward? No. The bridge is funded separately through the $35.5 million state appropriation and the intergovernmental agreement with ADOT. It proceeds on its own schedule regardless of the resort.
Was the January vote close? Yes. Both the general plan amendment and the rezoning passed 5-2, with council members raising questions about shoreline access, infrastructure timing, and whether approval should have been conditioned more tightly on the bridge actually being built first.
If you're weighing a home on the Island, or trying to figure out how a project like this actually affects value and timing rather than just headlines, that's exactly the kind of local detail worth working through with someone who's tracking it in real time. REALTOR® DJ, DJ Martin with Keller Williams, follows these local planning and infrastructure stories as part of daily work in this market. Schedule a free consultation to talk through what this timeline actually means for a specific Island property you're considering.
