After a highly charged public meeting last night, it appears that more work needs to be done on selling the downtown redevelopment project in Palm Springs. Complaints about height and density were on display for the 3 new members of the city council to discuss. The whole imbroglio is of course, man made.
Two prior councils had numerous vision sessions with city residents. OnePS types were thrilled to be included. People were dancing with joy around the Forever Marilyn Statute assured that the average citizen's voice was heard. Then a funny thing occurred. When push came to shove, the developer charged plans and now wants more height and density, In fact, someone in favor of the new project was quoted using the term, "urban" density. I can guarantee that term was never used in the earlier public hearings.
As I see it, there are 2 major problems facing Palm Springs in the next few months.
One is the height of the proposed buildings. A six story condo building and a 5 story hotel really are a bit tall for downtown. The Hyatt has always looked out of place. The new council will probably be in some long drawn out negotiations over this.
The second problem is one that has not really been addressed. With all these new hotels being built,including the new Spa, will there be a glut of hotel rooms? Oh I am aware that market studies say no but I am not sure. When the next recession comes, and it will, how will Palm Springs deal with it?
The new council has skipped the frying pan and went straight into the fire.
Steve Kelly can be reached at skelly@rrbroadcasting.com or followed on Twitter at @skellynj
One of the long term goals was to finally make full of our convention center. That center belongs to us. It's had new additions added at least 3 times since we moved here in '86. It was originally built to host mid size conventions of several thousand. The problem has always been an insufficient number of hotel rooms that can be blocked book by convention planners. 100 small hotels don't fit that bill. They also need to reasonably close to the convention center for obvious reasons.
ReplyDeleteLooking over the numbers of square feet that tribe is planning to build, strongly suggests of a height of definitely more than 5 stories. As we all know, the tribe is not subject to community debate. I think height in the end is a mute point. Just my current thinking on the matter.