The S.C. State Ports Authority owns the 40-acre site, but in September 2004 Sanford signed legislation calling for the port's closure and sale by the end of this year. The state's replacement plan includes a 400-slip marina, almost 400 homes and a 64-room hotel at the end of Paris Avenue.

The land will be sold as one parcel with an attached development agreement that will guarantee a well-integrated, mixed-use development, said Glen Kilgore, a member of the Ports Authority's board of directors, but the governor said more work is still needed.

"The plan is not where I'd like it in final form," Sanford told an audience gathered at the future site of the Port Royal Town Hall on Monday. "This is the beginning of the conversation."

Sanford said he wants to see more open space and low-density development, but the ultimate decision rests with the town's residents, he said. The short-term financial benefit of a high-density development is insignificant compared with a long-term quality of life benefit of large parks and open waterfront access, he told an audience of 80 residents and officials.

"Wealthy people will always have access to the water, but think of people in Yemassee, think about people in Burton," Sanford said of the development. "We have a magical opportunity here to do something for people with fewer and fewer opportunities to get to the water."

Immediately after the legislation closing the port was signed, the town drafted its vision for the property, and in February, the Ports Authority hired Wood and Partners of Hilton Head Island to do the same for about $200,000.

The Ports Authority's vision for the property isn't very different than the town's plan.

Under the town's plan, drafted for $80,000 by Baltimore-based Design Collective, the waterfront property would include 400 to 500 new homes, apartments and condominiums, up to 150,000 square feet of commercial space, a 250-room hotel, a marina, restaurant and public boat slips. Design Collective estimates the project will create 500 new jobs and pump $1.5 million in annual tax revenue into the town.

"The market people said there wasn't enough traffic to justify a 250-room hotel," Joe Lee, a member of the town's redevelopment commission said after Monday's meeting. "The (Ports Authority) plan is based on current circumstances."

Port Royal Mayor Sam Murray had a few issues with the state plan.

He said the 400-slip marina proposed under the state plan is too large, there isn't enough open space and the city's main streets, Paris, London and Madrid should extend to the water.

"It looks a lot better than I expected," Murray said of the state plan.

In the Ports Authority's plan Paris Avenue runs into the proposed hotel and London Avenue ends at a 1-acre park with an adjacent pier leading out onto the Battery Creek.

"This is still a work in progress," said Port Royal Councilwoman Mary Beth Gray-Heyward. "The council wants the dock scaled back and open vistas at the end of each street."

Town and state officials said they'd get together to work out the gaps between the two plans.

Ports Authority board member Colden R. Battey said criticism of the plan was reason for the meeting.

"The ultimate decision is Port Royal's," he said. "This plan is to show what could be done."

Although the land will be sold with a packaged development agreement, the redevelopment plan presented Monday only represents the best-case conceptual scenario.

"We're ready for the wrecking ball," said State Rep. Catherine Ceips, R-Beaufort. "From the phone calls I get, the people of Port Royal are ready to get moving."

Several longtime residents who remember Port Royal before the industrial complex dominated the waterfront said they'd been waiting too long.

"Twenty years ago I could sit on my front porch and count the cars on the Parris Island Parkway," said long-time Port Royal resident W.G. Wilburn of his house on 12th Street. "Now I can't even see the water."

Marie McCoy moved to Port Royal in 1950 with her Marine husband.

"I'd like to see the state clean out of the town and more open space," she said.

Sanford repeated several times the historical significance of the project. "We don't get a second chance," he said. "Particularly in terms of the deep water here. Decide as a community what you want to do with the property. Then we'll get it done, and then I want Columbia out of it."