The Palm Springs Planning Commission voted Tuesday to move forward proposed plans for a seven-story resort hotel and nine-story residential development that, if completed, would likely become the tallest building in Palm Springs.
The commissioners approved a major development permit for the project and a conditional use permit for a high-rise building and a pool bar and rooftop social club under the Section 14 Specific Plan. However, the approvals came with some additional conditions intended to address concerns with the project’s size.
The project is located at 847 East Andreas Rd., just north of Kaptur Plaza and between the Renaissance and Hilton hotels near the Palm Springs Convention Center on land currently used as a parking lot
The hotel portion of the building would be seven stories and include 125 rooms, and a nine-story residential portion would include 132 condo units, which owners would have the option of renting out through the hotel.
Parking would be available in an underground lot with 100 spaces and a five-level parking garage with 400 spaces attached to the residential tower. Plans also include a 6,040-square-foot standalone restaurant.
The resort hotel and condos are proposed by Nexus Development, Inc., and emerged as part of a settlement agreement over the “Prairie Schooner” property, involving a hotel proposed for the same site around 20 years ago.
That project became embroiled in a public corruption case involving a former Nexus employee who allegedly paid former Palm Springs Mayor Steven Pougnet bribes in exchange for the company purchasing the lot from the city at a reduced rate.
A Nexus affiliate company agreed to pursue plans for a hotel at the property as part of the settlement agreement, and the city agreed to expedite the hotel entitlement application.
“The initial project, when it started 20 years ago, was actually envisioned for a nine-story, 10-acre, 500-room hotel, and that was ultimately approved, and that was much more massive,” Rob Eres with Nexus told the commission on Tuesday.
Eres said the condo units are part of an industry shift toward “branded residences” that are part of the hotel but also provide ownership options. During off-peak times, when occupancy is hovering lower than the city’s 60% average, the property would serve as a 125-room hotel. But during the busy season, the hotel could “flex up” into a 257-room hotel, Eres said, with the company expecting that many of the condo owners will opt to make their units available as hotel inventory.
“The ultimate goal here is to get a project that not only can be something everyone’s proud of, that could be something that serves community members, but also feed tourism into the city, support the convention center, support surrounding restaurants and businesses,” said Eres, adding that the company believes its proposal “is an economically feasible project the way it is designed.”
But some residents living in the Plaza Villas condos across Andreas Road from the project site took issue with the building’s size, and with shade projections showing some shadow impacts, with the greatest additional shade around the winter solstice.
“People living in Plaza Villas, wintertime is top season, they’ll not be happy to be deprived of some hours of sunshine,” said one opponent. “ … We don’t need to be becoming the new Las Vegas or Manhattan.”
For comparison, the Kimpton Rowan hotel in downtown Palm Springs is seven stories. The nine-story portion of the Nexus project would be 99 feet, below the 100 feet allowed under the Section 14 Specific Plan, which allows high-rises with a conditional use permit.
Some commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting said they were less concerned with the shadowing on Plaza Villas, since the shade study showed increased shade for “a relatively small portion of the development for a two or three month window at a time in the early morning and in late afternoon,” said Commissioner David Murphy.
“We don’t need to be becoming the new Las Vegas or Manhattan.”
— A project opponent who spoke Tuesday evening
Chair Kathy Weremiuk and Vice Chair Lauri Aylaian expressed concerns over the building’s overall mass and size, and expressed a desire to continue the meeting to see more exhibits of how the project would look in context of surrounding buildings, and potentially with some adjustments.
“I’d like to see it in such a way that we don’t have the shadowing on the adjacent neighbors. I’m concerned about that, and I am concerned about the nine stories and the look, which is very stark to me, of the parking structure,” said Weremiuk.
But Eres said the company was “not comfortable” with any delay, and asked that the commission provide a yes or a no on whether the project would move forward to next steps with the Architectural Review Committee. If the commission denied the project, the developer could appeal that decision to the city council (which could then approve the project without input from the planning commission).
After an initial motion failed (with a tied 2-2 vote among the four commissioners present), the commission ultimately voted 4-0 to move the project forward, with a requirement added that the developer essentially cut out a minimum 20 by 20 foot chunk at the east and south ends of the nine-story tower to reduce its overall mass.
The project will next go to the Architectural Review Committee for a more detailed review of the project’s architecture, materials, and landscaping.
