Kids Clubhouse opening delayed due to ongoing building review

A planned indoor playground for kids in Rancho Mirage is running into some hurdles as it prepares to set up shop.

There’s a lot of playground equipment and toys at Kids Clubhouse, but no kids playing.

“I feel like this is a 10,000 square foot play structure storage space. That’s how I feel,” Aileen Lin, owner of Kids Clubhouse, said.

{“url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1151256075561312256″,”author_name”:”Jeremy Chen”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Kids Clubhouse at the River in &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/RanchoMirage?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#RanchoMirage&#lt;/a&#gt; was supposed to open during the summer but is now delayed due to a lengthy planning check. Hear the owner’s frustrations coming up today at 5 on &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KESQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@KESQ&#lt;/a&#gt;. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/lha4fRJSLO”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/lha4fRJSLO&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Jeremy Chen (@JeremyChenKESQ) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1151256075561312256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;July 16, 2019&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}

She’s been working for months to get it open so kids from infants to pre-teens have a place to play indoors. She’s had to delay due to a planning review.

“A lot of paperwork. A lot of red tape to go through. That’s been very frustrating. It’s been almost five months since the starting trying to get permitting,” Lin said.

In a statement, the Rancho Mirage city manager, Isaiah Hagerman, said: “The City of Rancho Mirage is doing all it can for The Kids Clubhouse project. Our main priority is to ensure the health and safety of all patrons and their children. Once those requirements have been met, The City of Rancho Mirage is excited for this welcome addition to our community. The City of Rancho Mirage will continue to be supportive of this project, but must ensure the health and safety requirements are met prior to final approval.”

Hagerman’s office also detailed the process of the plan review saying quote:

– The applicants for the Kids Clubhouse submitted their building plans for plan check on May 7, 2019. – They received a lengthy list of corrections from EsGil (the City’s plan check experts) on May 21, 2019.
– EsGil did not receive a corrected set of plans until July 3, 2019, and returned their second round of comments to the applicant on July 11, 2019.
– Everything in the second set of corrections was also listed in the first set of corrections but were simply not addressed with the resubmittal.

Lin says the contractor, EsGil is treating the planning process as if she was building a structure from the ground up rather than building within an existing space.

“It’s already built. Electric is up, HVAC is up, plumbing is up. Only the extension to the bathroom. We just need to build a couple of walls for rooms. That’s it. We thought it was going to be simple and it hasn’t been,” Lin said.

She’s had the lease in this space since March and was planning on opening during the summer. With not too many options in the valley to play indoors for children, away from the hot temperatures, Lin is anxious to get building.

“We have a lot of patrons that are waiting for this and have been messaging me, emailing me, texting me,” she said.

Lin wants to work with the city, but isn’t sure what the future holds.

“I honestly don’t know how long we can sustain waiting for permits,” she said.