Businesses sprouting up in area near Coachella Valley Arena development

If you've driven down Cook Street near the I-10 freeway in Palm Desert you may have noticed more construction projects in the area. It just so happens that on the other side of the freeway is where the multimillion dollar Coachella Valley Arena is set to go up. But are they connected? Surprisingly, what is getting built south of the freeway has been years in the making, according to a Palm Desert city spokesperson.

On Technology Drive near the Department of Motor Vehicles location in Palm Desert, the valley's newest La Quinta Brewery is open. Just across the street, crews are at work working to finalize a Holiday Inn Express slated to open later this year.

"The Holiday Inn Express, which is opening in October for 96 rooms," said co-owner, Jinder Singh.

Singh is one of four people working to get two hotels up in the area. He said they plan to break ground on the second project in March, which will be next door to the Holiday Inn Express. The other hotel, he said, will be a Staybridge Suites location.

The reasons behind opening the businesses are a far cry from cemented arena plans. Singh sited the location, saying there was a little bit of everything on Cook Street.

Despite different reasons for building new hotels, there is no doubt that having a multimillion dollar arena nearby, and planned for completion in Fall 2022, will give a boost to nearby business.

"I think it’s going to benefit our business big time," Singh said.

It's not just hotels and a new brewery that are going up.

"We have several housing developments that are under construction," said the interim director for the city of Palm Desert's Development Services, Eric Seja.

Seja said the construction that residents see now has been years in the making.

"A lot of the planning in that part of town goes back decades but most recently around 2015 we started looking into new land use patterns, specific plans that laid out for more housing development in the area and it’s just that the market has caught up and housing is really hot at the moment so we’re seeing a lot of housing start in that northern part of town," Seja said.

Meanwhile, the arena will house the valley's first ever American Hockey League team, along with concerts and events. While it will sit outside Palm Desert's city boundaries, the new developments are bound to attract more visitors farther east.