After years of trying, Sand City is finally set to see a hotel built within its borders.

For decades, Sand City has had dreams of hotels along its beaches, which culminated in just a single project gaining conditional approval – the Monterey Bay Shores “eco-resort” north of Scribble Hill, a project that is still collecting dust while litigation sorts out an ownership dispute.

It turns out the city’s first hotel is instead coming on the east side of Highway 1. Sometime this month, construction crews are expected to begin staging equipment on the property known as South of Tioga to prepare for a February groundbreaking.

Ebbie Nakhjavani, CEO of EKN Development, which is building the four-story, 215-room hotel in partnership with Gam Development, expects construction to be complete by early 2026. He hopes the hotel’s restaurant and bar will become a “nucleus” for both locals and guests to gather, whether it be for trivia nights or wine tastings.

If that proves to be true, it would align with late developer Don Orosco’s vision for the property – Orosco brokered all the land and property acquisitions necessary to develop the site (he had to buy some people out) – which he coined in 2017 as “Venice North.” He was speaking about how early local establishments close after the sun goes down, and told the Weekly back then that “when the rest of the community rolls up their doormat,” his hope was that “everybody heads to Sand City.”

The hotel will be a Marriott-branded Courtyard and Residence Inn, and its restaurant and bar will be centered around a courtyard with a pool area.

What’s not yet clear is the timeline for the two-building, 356-unit residential complex on the property.

The project has all the required approvals, all the subsurface infrastructure is in and it has all the necessary water available. What it needs now is a buyer to acquire and build it. The process could be a test case for how quickly development does or does not occur when the lack of water is not an obstacle.