In October Peninsula Community Planning Board approved plans for converting a motel into a hotel, as well as sharing stories and accolades about late community activist Jarvis Ross.

Architect Amanda Mauceri of Vista Investments, which owns the hotel-conversion site at 1325 Scott St., presented on the project, which would demolish an existing two-story 40-room motel and construct a new three-story 87,270-square-foot, 91-room hotel with a pool and underground parking in its place on the 0.62-acre site.

Plans call for constructing 11,500 square feet of public space on the hotel’s ground floor with a lobby, lounge,  conference area, 14 guest rooms, a fitness room, and a café/nighttime bar.

“The amenities on the ground floor are lobby space with a lounge, a swimming pool, a cafe, a bar, and a planter,” said Mauceri. “That will be a really nice space with guest rooms on the upper floors.”

Mauceri noted the new hotel will be among the AC Hotel by Marriott international chain, pointing out there will be meeting room space available for rent. She added the project’s fitness room will be small, and the cafe/bar will have lighter fare because it won’t have a full kitchen and the restaurant will have limited service.

Mauceri described the new hotel’s design as “California Coastal using natural materials, like wood, in the facade. We didn’t want it to be so modern that it feels dated by the time it’s built.”

Board member Mark Krencik suggested some of the new hotel’s meeting space could be dedicated as a community meeting space.

Plan group members also paid homage to late community activist Jarvis Ross, who had been a board member for the better part of the past 20 years and was an outspoken community activist.

Krencik spoke for all in noting that one thing he will always remember about Ross was that he “was always there.”

Krencik recounted one Ross remembrance.

“Jarvis told me he’d always wanted to be an architect,” he said. “I winked and smiled at him and said, ‘You’d be a good architect.’”

Added Krencik, “He was somebody who was stable, somebody that always had an opinion and would voice that opinion.”

Board member Margaret Virissimo praised Ross’s community-mindedness.

“He always went to Midway planning meetings, which showed me how much passion, commitment, and dedication he had for all those years,” she said. “You can’t buy that. I will miss him and his feedback, suggestions, and all the love he had for Point Loma.”

Robert Tripp Jackson recalled Ross was active in the community all the way back to the late 1990s.

“Every time I went down to a City Council meeting — he would always be there,” Jackson said. “I could tell over the last six months that he was slowing down. But he never gave up. He always showed up, and he was always part of the conversation.”