Planned Seaside youth hostel opens up to public comment.

Travelers seem to never lose sight of summer, and neither do the folks building a new hostel on the former Fort Ord.

It’s been more than 15 years since Hostelling International first envisioned the hostel next to CSU Monterey Bay. Hostel leaders hoped to open the first of three buildings in summer 2012, then pushed it back to summer 2013. With the slow pace of bureaucracy, the latest goal is summer 2014.

“We’re always shooting for the summer,” says Peter Kambas, board president of the Central California Council of American Youth Hostels.

The city of Seaside’s proposal to adopt a mitigated negative declaration – which would allow the project to move forward without a full environmental impact report – is open for public comment July 18-Aug. 16.

Kambas says the challenges, including hazardous materials like asbestos, are expected in the environmentally ambitious renovation of old Army buildings.

The project’s current phase will cost about $800,000 and is three-quarters funded by state grants; the organization is still raising the rest.

The 42-bed building will mostly serve as overflow for the Monterey Hostel at first. But the new hostel – within 2 miles of Fort Ord National Monument trails and one block from CSUMB campus – should eventually, Kambas says, become a destination in its own right.