A proposed development would more than double Sand City’s population.

Sand City may be poised for a radical transformation.

Monterey-based Orosco Group, a development company led by Don Orosco, has submitted conceptual building plans to the city for a project that would bring two hotels and two apartment buildings to a 10-acre property just south of Tioga Avenue, across from Costco.

Based on the 420 apartment units proposed, the development would more than double Sand City’s current population of just under 400 residents.

Orosco says an environmental impact report is already in progress, and that “cutting-edge” architects are fine-tuning the project’s design.

“Our vision really is to take Sand City to, someday – and hopefully I’ll be around – ‘Venice North,’” Orosco says, alluding to southern California’s Venice Beach, a hip, longtime hub of artists.

Orosco hopes the project, called West End, can inject newfound vibrancy in the Monterey Peninsula, so that kids who grow up in the area and go off to college will want to return.

“For people that want an active environment, it is my desire to contribute to that, where somebody has a restaurant open after 8:30pm – when the rest of the community rolls up their doormat, and everybody heads to Sand City,” he says. “I would love to see that happen, and that’s an opportunity that sits at [Sand City’s] doormat right now.”

In a region where ambitious development dreams usually contend with numerous pitfalls, West End has many advantages. For one, there is water: From Sand City’s desalination plant, the city still has 161 acre-feet of water annually that it has yet to allocate; Orosco estimates West End – which is proposed on 10-plus acres of property his company has acquired over the last 17 years – will require just over 30 acre-feet annually. In addition, the existing businesses on the properties have water credits that city officials are calculating.

And importantly, from a developer’s standpoint, the project is not in the coastal zone, so it will not need approval from the California Coastal Commission.

The existing buildings on the project site are mostly industrial warehouses that the city considers blighted, and City Administrator Todd Bodem says West End would not only transform those properties and bring in more revenue for the city, it would inject economic activity outside the project’s footprint.

But a number of tenant businesses will be displaced, including Sanctuary Rock Gym, which is a regional draw for the same type of people – younger, active – that Orosco hopes to attract with his development.

Orosco bought that property about a decade ago, and though Sanctuary General Manager Charles Schrammel has seen the writing on the wall, he still has not found a new location.

“It’s next to impossible to find a location for the gym that’s more convenient for the Peninsula as a whole,” Schrammel says. “At the moment, we’re just considering how we can best fight the development.”

Sanctuary’s owner, Michael Bascou, says he’d buy the warehouse Sanctuary leases if he had the chance, but Orosco says that’s not a feasible option in the scope of his plans.

“They’ve got to put their hand in there and take the lead to find an alternative,” Orosco says. “It’s not something that crept up on them.”