Coachella Valley “I-Hub” Opens

The old Palm Springs Police Station has a new life.

The building, located on 3111 E. Tahquitz Canyon Way, is now the headquarters for the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership (CVEP). COO Wesley Ahlgren said CVEP spent eight months looking for its new home.

“We gutted the whole thing,” he said. CVEP’s former offices were located in Palm Desert.

The CVEP headquarters serves as a one-stop shop for businesses and entrepreneurs. “They can come in and use the facility, sit down, use the phone, use the Internet,” he said, “grab a cup of coffee.”

CVEP’s services are free.

Victoria Donnellan, of MetLife Home Loans, is CVEP’s temporary tenant. The non-profit organization lent her one of its executive suites as she continued her search for her company’s permanent offices.

“I’m fairly new to the community,” she said. “Wesley and his staff have a lot of background [in the Coachella Valley], and they were able to fill me in quickly. So, I was able to get things moving.”

CVEP also will house the I-Hub Program. The state program will focus on recruiting clean technology businesses and creating new jobs in that emerging industry.

“We are 60 minutes away from four of the five renewable energy resources: wind, solar, geothermal and biomass, right here in our backyards,” Ahlgren said. “We need to take advantage of that.”

The I-Hub’s open floor plan was designed on purpose. Ahlgren said CVEP imitated the open floor plans of Google and Facebook headquarters to stimulate conversation and exchange ideas.

CVEP and I-Hub will be open Monday thru Friday, 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. For more information, please call (760) 340-1575.