PS City Council pushes amendments to downtown project
The Palm Springs City Council discussed amendments to the Museum Market Plaza Plan which includes changing height requirements to bring a Virgin brand hotel into the project.
After hours of public comment and a presentations by a representative with Wessman Development, the council pushed the vote on the amendments so the planning commission and staff could go over the details.
According to members of the council and representatives with Wessman Development, the two entities have been working together for weeks to compromise changing parts of the project. Final plans for the downtown project cold take several months.
Some of the amendments to the plan include changing the height for the building that would house the Virgin Hotel to 69 feet, it was originally planned to be 75 feet in height.
Several buildings would also have their height reduced to 40 feet from 60 feet. This would eliminate about 877,000 square-feet of building space, reducing density of the project.
Town and Country Center would not be demolished to make a street, but would be incorporated into a Marriott Hotel. The area where the Marriott Hotel would have gone would be changed into residential and retail space.
The developer would also sell block A1, which is on the north end of the project, back to the city for a dollar, which could be used as a parking lot fitting 70 spaces.
Even if the city council agreed to the amendments of the plan, the Planning Commission would need to amend the environmental impact and would need to conduct traffic studies. Once it goes back to the Planning Commission, it will be reviewed and returned to city council between 60 and 90 days.
Some historical architecture experts are still firmly against the development.
“If you lose the context of the building by putting a big eight-story building next to it then you lose the beauty, you lose the significance, and I have a lot of problems for growth for growths sake,” said Bruce Emerton who took the podium to address the council today.
Still, other local business owners would like to see the amendments to the project go further.
“It is a fantastic flag to have in Palm Springs. It will draw people from across the United States, especially from the LA area back to Palm Springs, and things are happening in Palm Desert and La Quinta and we are missing out on that action here in Palm Springs,” said Michael Kassinger, who owns a small business in Palm Springs.
All city council members are in support of having the Virgin Hotel be built in the downtown project.
The council members did vote on clarifications that would have to be sent back to staff to be added into the language to the amendments, including the height of some buildings and the depth of certain setbacks and sidewalks.
The amendments will come back to the council at their first meeting in March after city staff is able to clarify the language of some of the height-limits for some of the buildings.
Then their would be 60 days for the city to do environmental studies.
