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In a dining room at the massive Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, Mirek Von Springer instructs a group from Fort Washington and Largo on the subtle points of wine.

On Tuesday, the trainees will be taking orders from guests at the new $865 million hotel — the first portion of the massive National Harbor development in Oxon Hill to open and one of the largest combined hotel and convention centers on the East Coast, Gaylord officials say.

‘‘Prince Georgians can be proud to have something like this,” said Kwasi G. Holman, director of the county Economic Development Corp. ‘‘It’s a harbinger of things to come.”

The Gaylord hotel, the anchor for the $2 billion, 300-acre development along the Potomac, will soon become a waterfront mini-city of high-class stores and dining, National Harbor developer Milton V. Peterson said.

‘‘People in Prince George’s are always saying, ‘We don’t got no classy restaurants,’” Peterson said. ‘‘Well, you do now, sweetheart.”

One of the first is a McCormick and Schmick’s seafood restaurant expected to open this spring. By next year, more than 23 stores and restaurants will be operating at National Harbor.

Meanwhile, the rush is on.

As officials for Gaylord toured with reporters through the new hotel Friday, their voices were drowned out by the whine of power tools, knocks from construction in other rooms and fire alarms.

‘‘At this point, we’re going round the clock,” said Gaylord spokeswoman Amie Gorrell.

The first guests to pay $299 a night for accommodations will be a Saturn auto company convention on Tuesday, Gorrell said. Exhibitors with the Army Aviation Association of America will literally fly in by helicopter later next week, actually landing on the site and becoming the first group to fill the 2,000-room hotel to capacity.

All that is before the Nashville-based company hosts a black-tie dinner April 25 for the grand opening of what will be Gaylord’s fourth hotel. Over the next year, five more hotels and condo towers will open across the site, joining the boutiques and restaurants.

The Phase I launch comes after more than 30 years of stops and starts, lawsuits and public wrangling.

‘‘Yes, it’s been a long time,” Peterson said. ‘‘But when you do something this drastic, it takes a while.”

At one point, the project was known as PortAmerica, a waterfront residential and office complex that featured a 52-story skyscraper overlooking the river.

Environmental concerns held up the permits and approvals for years. Developers also faced scrutiny from aviation agencies over whether the height of the tower would block planes trying to land at Reagan Washington National Airport across the river in Alexandria, Va.

By the mid-1990s, officials of PortAmerica were filing for bankruptcy, and Peterson, a Northern Virginia builder whose past projects include Tysons Corner Mall and the redevelopment of downtown Silver Spring, purchased the land in 1996.

Gaylord, which specializes in conventions and large groups, announced its partnership with Peterson in 2000. For years, Peterson went back and forth with county and regional planning boards about environmental issues and approvals. Later, neighboring residents filed a lawsuit seeking to block the project before settling in 2004.

Peterson expressed his frustration about the delays.

‘‘You and California are the worst,” he said. ‘‘Every brick, you have to get approved. You can’t live like that.”

It took an act of Congress to get the project moving. In 1999, lawmakers agreed to bypass a required National Capital Planning Commission review of the site. Another hurdle cleared five years later, when the residents agreed to drop their lawsuits after Peterson agreed to a host of concessions.

Disputes have also persisted over minority-owned business and county contracting opportunities at the site. Developers originally agreed to reserve 30 percent of business to minority-owned or county-based businesses, but the requirement was later scaled back to 15 percent. Officials for Peterson and Gaylord said they still haven’t been able to meet that guideline for minority-owned businesses due to inadequate bids, although they will try to boost the contracts in the future.

But the true breakthrough came when regional governments overcame opposition and agreed to build a 12-lane expansion of the Wilson Bridge, said Jon Peterson, a senior project vice president and son of Milton Peterson.

‘‘We wouldn’t be where we are without that,” he said.

County officials predict that National Harbor will pay off in the future. Although Prince George’s officials expect to pay an average of $6 million a year to provide police, fire, public works and other services to National Harbor, the benefits are expected to be far greater.

With a 5 percent hotel tax, fees from the sales of luxury condos and other taxes, county officials estimate that National Harbor will bring in about $1.53 billion in revenue through 2037. That’s an average of $65 million a year.

Some county residents are already seeing a regular paycheck from the project. Of the 1,800 new employees Gaylord hired earlier this year, about 600 are Prince George’s residents, Gorrell said.

By the time National Harbor is fully built out, more than 5,000 people are expected to work there.

Bigger events are also on the horizon. A Texas political society has already booked Gaylord’s massive ballroom for President George W. Bush’s farewell party early next year, and officials for the hotel said the size of the center may help position Washington as a potential contender for a future Democratic or Republican National Conventions.

‘‘Prince George’s could finally stand up and challenge Alexandria,” said Gaylord General Manager Sheldon Suga.

Business and city officials across the river have taken notice of that, too. Alexandria is spending $2.3 million on efforts to attract the millions of people expected to come to National Harbor each year.

City investments have included new waterfront lighting and a trolley to whisk National Harbor visitors travelling by water taxi to the historic downtown.

‘‘The good thing is that Alexandria is going to be exposed to visitors who would not be coming here otherwise,” said Stuart Litvin, executive director for Alexandria’s Economic Development Partnership. ‘‘It’s not like they’re taking something away from the Washington area. They’re bringing more.”

National Harbor and hotel officials said the water taxi service will leave every 30 minutes beginning in April.

National Harbor’s centerpiece is a wide, tree-lined boulevard running from the shores of the river up a hill, leading to a stage for entertainment — an inspiration Peterson drew from a visit to Barcelona, Spain. The Boulevard, named American Way, frames the Masonic Temple in Alexandria in the center of its waterfront view.

It’s that view that brought Peterson to the project, he said.

Peterson said he did not pick the site because it was in Prince George’s County.

‘‘We picked it because it’s a fabulous property on the Potomac River,” he said. ‘‘That’s the world’s capital right there.”

The lure of living within minutes of Washington has already led to robust sales at the site, which developers said appear to make it immune from the declining national economy.

The 450 condos being built for the first phase are already 90 percent sold out, Peterson said, and Gaylord officials said they have already confirmed 1.3 million bookings at the hotel through 2018.

Officials say it’s just the beginning. Coming years will bring more big stores and attractions, including the National Children’s Museum, expected to open in 2012.

‘‘This county’s come a long way,” Peterson said. ‘‘It’s the land of opportunity.”

E-mail Daniel Valentine at dvalentine@gazette.net.