Last fall, Mayor Bloomberg announced renewed plans to develop a stretch of Staten Island's waterfront known as the Homeport. And now the site's developer says he's making good on that promise. NY1's Amanda Farinacci filed the following report.

From the looks of it there's not much going on at the Staten Island Homeport, the 36-acre site in Stapleton that was once owned by the United States Navy. But the site's developer says there's lots of action behind the scenes as the firm prepares to overhaul the sprawling waterfront property, including a lot of community outreach.

"Whether it's SIEDC, the Chamber of Commerce, Community Board 1, and really giving them an idea of what we're doing with this project, getting support, making sure that we're getting as broad a base as possible for a project like this," said David Barry of Ironstate Development.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced renewed plans to develop the site back in September, after the previous design fell apart because it offered only 350 units of housing, and was a tough sell to developers. The sinking economy didn't help either. It wasn't until after months of tight-lipped negotiations between the city's Economic Development Corporation, which owns the site, and Ironstate Development, that a new plan was reached. That plan calls for a waterfront esplanade, retail space, and 800 units of housing, to be split between two residential buildings.

About half of the housing will be built in the first phase of construction as well as retail space, which Barry hopes will draw crowds.

"We're gonna sign all of our retail tenants and it's going to be a great project from the public's perspective and then as that becomes successful, we'll add additional housing units later," Barry said.

Ironstate has been aggressively seeking tenants for the retail space, looking for mom and pop shops as well as trying to attract established Staten Island restaurants. Meantime, the city has been preparing to do infrastructure work on roads and waterfront space.

There are five buildings used by the city at the Homeport, one of which has already been vacated. The city says the remaining occupants will be relocated by the end of the year, paving the way for construction and demolition to begin.