Why the secret?: We ask new Palm Springs leaders about mystery projects

Plans for new six-story hotel in Palm Springs could soon be on it’s way to the City Council.

The Palm Springs Planning Commission is reviewing the proposal Wednesday night. However, who is going to run the hotel is still a secret and that’s not the only project going through the city with a mystery name.

News Channel 3 and CBS Local 2 talked with newly elected city leaders, who promised transparency, about why there appears to be secrecy.

“It’s very import people understand what we are doing and why we are doing it,” said Mayor Robert Moon.

Before any building can be built, it goes through an approval process: an architectural advisory committee, planning commission and then finally the City Council.

“The downtown development project and the building themselves, the height of the buildings, the density of the buildings and also where the taxpayers dollars are going, that needs to be transparent. That has not been transparent in the past and I and really looking into that,” said Moon.

Calls for more transparency came after City Hall was raided by the FBI and allegations of conflict of interest surrounded now former Mayor Steve Pougnet.

This week, the Architectural Advisory Committee gave the green light to add a new retail store on top of one already planned in the city’s downtown project. Who is moving in, the developers wouldn’t say.

Those same developers are also mum on who will be the name on the six-story hotel still going through the approval process.

So why the secrecy?

“It’s really a marketing and business decision. I think that’s a different thing than taxpayer dollars going into development,” said Moon.

Moon said in some cases, the developer announces the brand’s name of a business looking to move in might actually hurt the city’s and developer’s interests.

“It sort of gives it away the knowledge to other people that a certain brand is looking to come to Palm Springs. It gives them the opportunity to go and try to steal these people to go to Palm Desert,” said Moon.

Councilman Geoff Kors said this early in the process, decisions shouldn’t be made based on whose moving in, but rather what the building will look like.

“How is the architecture and from a planning point of view is 5 feet taller on a building good or bad? That is all they should be looking at. They should not be looking at the brand,” said Kors.

Moon says that also extends to the City Council.

“We wouldn’t be voting on where that brand could come,” said Moon. “I’ve seen one retailer leave and one comes in. It’s flexible and varies. A building is there for 30,40,50, years.”

Kors also wants any inside information made public before the council votes.

‘If the developer has shared that information with council or the planning commission then I think it needs to be made public before the vote,” said Kors.

As far as who those tenants may be, as News Channel 3 and CBS Local 2 reported in September, Virgin Hotels is looking at Palm Springs.

We also learned Wednesday, one of the renderings submitted for the new retailer shows the logo for London-based clothing store D & M on the front.

It may be months before we officially find out from the developers.