Tour de Palm Springs to possibly relocate in 2018

The Tour de Palm Springs will possibly be moving to a new host city in the Coachella Valley in 2018.

Founder Tim Esser said talks to relocate the event to Palm Desert are underway. The popular event will still be held in Palm Springs in January of 2017.

According to Esser’s release, the negotiations with the City of Palm Desert occurred as a result of two major events (Modernism Week & Tour de Palm Springs) taking place on the same day in February in Downtown Palm Springs.

Esser said in a statement, “The merchants in Downtown Palm Springs and the City of Palm Springs leaders and city staff have been great to work with for so many years, but due to a decline in ridership over the last several years, we thought best to relocate the event.”

According to Esser’s release, due to the overlapping of these two giant and well known events on the same weekend, the Tour de Palm Springs was asked to relocate its event up three weeks to a more suitable date. After several years of declining attendance due to this January date change, the Tour de Palm Springs decided to search for another suitable locations that could accommodate the original mid-February event.

As a result, Palm Desert was among the several cities interested in entertaining the idea of hosting the nationally-known event.

KESQ and CBS Local 2 will continue to bring you updates as the discussion to move the event moves forward.