Seaside City Councilman Don Jordan recalls flying into Monterey and seeing a map of the Peninsula during the flight.

“I looked over at the map and I saw Sand City and Fort Ord,” he remembers,  “but Seaside wasn’t on there. I said to myself, ‘We have to put Seaside on the map.’”

Jordan and the rest of the Council took the first step towards putting Seaside on the map last week—and making the city a vacation destination—when the elected officials unanimously voted to sell a section of the Bayonet and Blackhorse Golf Course to Seaside Resort Development. The Arizona-based company plans to build a four-star hotel with 170 rooms and 160 surrounding bungalows on 18 acres of land, where the driving range is currently located.

Architects for projects say they will create a “grand seaside lodge.” They say that the architecture—a turn-of-the-century, Eastern US, cabin style—will be unique to the area, with features including stone, shingle and gable roofs. The resort will also feature an octagon-shaped restaurant, and views of the Monterey Bay.

In conjunction with the hotel, plans also include the construction of 170 timeshare units on 19 acres and 125 single-family residential lots on 47 acres, with 20 percent of the homes being priced affordable to low-income and work-force buyers.

Plans for a large-scale project designed to reignite the city’s economy—included in the Fort Ord Reuse Plan and Seaside’s General Plan— have been in the works since 1991.

“We weren’t ever able to recover from the closure of Fort Ord. Seaside could become a great destination.” —Seaside City Councilman Don Jordan

“We weren’t ever able to recover from the closure of Fort Ord,” Jordan says. He’s hoping that the yet-to-be-built resort will give the city a boost. “Seaside could become a great destination.”

But to get to the recent vote to move forward with the hotel, Seaside had to travel a long, winding road of headaches and failed project proposals, including an amusement park once considered by the council.

Hill Glazier, the architect firm hired to work on the hotel project, has been developing the plans for the Seaside Resort hotel for nearly six years.

Jordan calls it a “win-win” for the city. “No taxpayer money has been or will be used for this,” he says.

Seaside will bring in $20 million for the initial sale of the land to Seaside Resort Development, where the hotel will be constructed. City officials estimate that millions of dollars in additional revenue will be generated through taxes from the hotel, time shares and houses.

Councilmembers hope that the revenue generated from the project will provide funding for a Seaside sports complex.

“This will give us the economic base we need,” Seaside Mayor Ralph Rubio says.

The project has also won the support of labor. “We think this resort took a long time to get underway, but it will be well worth it for everyone in the community,” says Mark Weller, representative of the local 483 Hotel Workers Union.

The project will create 200 temporary construction jobs and about 300 permanent jobs.

An apprenticeship program will be established, giving 22 teenagers interested in careers in hotel management and hospitality services the chance to learn the trade.

Hotel construction is expected to take two years, and the timeshare and residential units will be completed over five or more years.

Seaside Resort Development’s Richard Fitzgerald says he hopes that the hotel’s construction will begin in one year’s time.

“We’re about the future,” Rubio says. “This is just the beginning.”