A tiny Monterey County city best known for its Costco and Target has just landed approval for something it has chased for nearly half a century: a hotel built right on its beachfront dunes. The California Coastal Commission voted in August to approve a development permit for the Collections Resort, a 100-room condominium-hotel proposed for an 8-acre privately owned site along the sand in Sand City, with an adjacent campground of 25 tent-cabins tucked into the dunes.
The approval caps what Coastal Commission staff described, in language reported by Monterey County Now, as “the culmination of nearly 50 years of planning and permitting activity at this site.” Monterey County Now describes the project as a 100-room hotel and resort complex, tentatively called the Collections Resort, that would include a restaurant, spa and a 25-unit tent-cabin campground, while the advocacy group ActCoastal characterizes the approved project as a 100-unit condominium hotel; the Commission's vote itself was unanimous, according to ActCoastal. As first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, the project is proposed for the former Sand City sand-mining site, where mining operations ceased in the early 1990s; the beach has languished for 50 years.
A Scaled-Back Vision After Decades of Rejections
This is not the first time a developer has tried to build big on this stretch of sand. An earlier proposal for a 340-room hotel was rejected by the Coastal Commission over coastal hazards, public views, dune protection and public coastal access, according to the Chronicle. Around 2014, a related Sand City Collections plan for a nearly 12-acre, 340-unit resort was also scrapped after an appeal to the Coastal Commission, per Monterey County Now's account.
By the summer of 2017, the project's backer, King Ventures, was negotiating a far smaller version with Commission staff. “What we're working on is a scaled-back project … something half or less,” Dave Watson, the company's planner, told the Monterey Herald at the time. That same site had earned a different fate in 2013, when Sand City approved King Ventures' Collections at Monterey Bay as a 340-room hotel and vacation club with conference facilities, a spa, a restaurant and public beach access — a plan that did not survive the coastal permitting process, the Herald's reporting shows. King Ventures ultimately resubmitted a substantially reduced resort proposal in 2026, according to the Chronicle, and the company, headquartered in San Luis Obispo, has owned and operated several Central Coast hotels over the past 40 years. King Ventures did not reply to the Chronicle's requests for comment on the project.
Dune Restoration, Trails and a Built-In Exit Clause
The conditions attached to the approval go well beyond a typical building permit. ActCoastal says the secured conditions include retreat, restoration, a completed Coastal Trail, permanent dune protection and what it calls “a hard no on future armoring.” In a separate post, the group states that shoreline armoring is prohibited for the life of the development and that any future rights to build it have been waived outright.
Perhaps the most striking condition is what happens if sea levels keep climbing: “If the ocean reaches the resort, the resort comes out and the public trails and beach access move inland,” according to ActCoastal. Per the Chronicle's reporting, King Ventures plans to excavate a large concrete berm on the site to help restore the dune system, and has committed to building walking paths, a mile-long connection to the California Coastal Trail, boardwalks, viewing platforms, bathrooms and parking. The developers have also promised to clean up and preserve the 25-acre area around the resort, Monterey County Now reports, and required improvements more broadly cover a 22-acre expanse of beach and dunes controlled by Sand City, including debris cleanup and habitat restoration for snowy plovers and other native flora and fauna, the Chronicle notes. The city's own Coastal Trail plan, as described on its website, is meant to connect Sand City's West End District to the coast, provide an ADA-accessible pathway and viewing area, and restore sensitive dune habitat.
An 800-Foot Concrete Berm Still Blocks the Sand
For now, Sand City's beach remains hard to reach. An 800-foot-long concrete berm blocks beach access, and Kevin Kahn told the Chronicle that the industrial rubble left behind is the main obstacle standing between the beach and its potential as a prime, publicly accessible visitor destination. Longtime city councilmember Mary Ann Carbone, who has served on the Sand City council for 35 years, told the Chronicle that cleaning up the beach has long been a goal of city leaders.
King Ventures planner Dave Watson was involved in discussions about a scaled-back version of the resort. The Collections Resort site is not considered an environmentally sensitive habitat area under the Coastal Act of 1972, the Chronicle reports — a classification that shaped how the Commission weighed the project against the dune restoration and trail commitments attached to it.
Surfrider's Reluctant Nod and a Developer's Legal Troubles
Environmental advocates did not exactly cheer the outcome. Jennifer Savage of the Surfrider Foundation said the organization does not support building a resort on the beach and coastal dunes, even as Surfrider expressed what the Chronicle characterized as reluctant acceptance of the approved proposal given its conditions.
The project's path forward also sits alongside separate legal troubles for King Ventures' principal. According to the San Luis Obispo Tribune, John King is accused in a fraud lawsuit of using real estate holdings to dodge debt obligations; his attorneys have said the allegations are false, per the same Tribune reporting. King Ventures must still complete environmental and infrastructure improvements before the hotel itself can be built, the Chronicle notes.
A Small City Betting on Tourism
Sand City, which sits in Monterey County along Highway 1, counted just 323 residents at last count and currently relies on sales tax from Costco and Target as its primary revenue source, according to the Chronicle. The city opened its first hotel, a 215-room Marriott Courtyard, in January 2026 — reported at the time by the Monterey Herald as a dual-branded Marriott property. About 80% of the city's coastline has been set aside for open space and habitat restoration under a city council agreement, per the Chronicle's account.
An earlier case nearby involved the 39-acre Monterey Bay Shores eco-resort north of the Collections site, which won Coastal Commission approval in 2014, though its conditions were still being mitigated as of 2017, the Monterey Herald reported. California's coastline runs 840 miles total, the Chronicle notes — a reminder of just how rare it is for the state to sign off on new construction directly on an active dune system.
