Global increases in development have resulted in severe habitat modification along coastal zones and offshore. Marine built structures can impact on native marine species. The provision of extra hard surface presents additional free space, and research suggests invasive marine species may be able to exploit floating structures such as pontoons more effectively than native species. Floating structures then act as stepping stones to facilitate establishment and regional spread. We investigated whether (1) increasing the complexity of surfaces, (2) including natural materials in substrates, (3) transplanting native species and (4) increasing daytime lighting could enhance native species recruitment and growth over invasive species. We found that increasing complexity had different effects depending on tidal elevation. Specifically, increased complexity facilitated more invasive species at lower tidal elevations and particularly in moist, shaded microhabitats. We found that including natural materials had little effect on invasive species and that transplanting some native species could inhibit recruitment by invasive species. Overall, daytime lighting was most effective at encouraging growth by native seaweeds that then excluded invasive invertebrate species. These findings are significant because they identify factors that promote native over invasive species and can assist in designing nature-based approaches for infrastructure to prevent marine invasion.