MONTEREY, Calif.-
Construction is set to begin along Cannery Row on a multimillion-dollar hotel project originally approved more than 20 years ago.
The Cannery Row Hotel will eradicate the last run-down section of the seaside street made famous by John Steinbeck.
Developers have planned 208 luxury hotel rooms, 10,200 square feet of meeting area, a 95-seat restaurant and 18,500 square feet of retail space to serve the heavily touristed strip. Steinbeck, a Nobel Prize-winning novelist, made Cannery Row a national landmark after his 1945 novel of the same name.
The project was stalled by an environmental lawsuit and the inability of other developers to obtain financing. The site plan for the hotel was approved 23 years ago.
The Cannery Row Hotel will likely be the last hotel built in Monterey. City voters approved a ballot measure in the 1980s banning all hotel construction. The Cannery Row hotel project was exempt because it already had a permit.
Construction is expected to take 18 months to two years and cost $70 million to $80 million.
