Understand costs and other impacts of Talus La Quinta with online Timeline as troubled project faces next city deadline

Confusion comes to mind for many people when thinking about the twists and turns of La Quinta's Talus luxury resort project. 

Sunday is the latest big deadline facing the mountainside development, initially named SilverRock Resort but rebranded in 2022 due to years of delays.

Instead of a prosperous job and tax-generating resort, Talus is an unfinished collection of roads and buildings wrapped in a golf course with a community still waiting for what is supposed to be.  

The community continues to pay for its years of construction delays, lost jobs, and unfulfilled promises.

The story has unfolded over 22 years and has left many in the community unable to figure it out and understand how exactly we got here. Also, exactly what it's costing taxpayers with every continued delay.  

Our latest I-team investigation gives you a tool to understand it all. 

Jeff Stahl spent countless hours reviewing the city's project-related documents and created an easy-to-use Talus Timeline. 

The story begins in 2002 with a $42,500,000 land sale of the old Ahmanson Cattle Ranch to the city using state redevelopment dollars. The idea was, and still is, to build a jobs-creating, tax-generating resort property and golf course, to benefit the City and its residents. 

Jeff Stahl caught up with former Mayor Don Adolph who remembers the early days of the development well. 

"Our face lit up and said, 'Great. Now we can move forward and put in another golf course and a hotel and all that started started to move forward,'" said Adolph, adding "And that's what we were looking for-- the improvement and the development to bring in financial monies in the future." 

Adolph remembers the city's goals in wanting the development to be used as an economic driver. 

"And we wanted a good hotel, and then we wanted a development in that whole area including housing rental and things like that."

"And that's what we were looking for-- the improvement and the development to bring in financial monies in the future," Adolph added.  

An award-winning golf course opened within three years, but a recession followed in 2007. After more than a six-year delay, the SilverRock Development Company, LLC, and the  Robert Green Company were chosen as developers in 2014.  

Adolph said, "Yeah, so that was my last year on the council. And everything was going well up to that point. And then things change and that can new people go in." 

Adolph told News Channel 3 he was a 'no' vote on the change of developers to Green. Mayor Linda Evans pointed out that minutes of a Nov. 4, 2014, City Council meeting showed Adolph had some concerns but was ultimately a 'yes' vote for the hiring of Silverrock Development Company, LLC to assume the project.

Within a year, the Talus Timeline shows the first of many 'Notice of Defaults,' then the need for eventually five amendments to reset the deal as construction and other city development deadlines came and passed without required progress.  

"And at that stage of the game, I would have said, 'Goodbye,'" said Adolph adding, "And we'll bring in somebody that's willing to work and stay with it and be financially viable." 

Adolph was no longer on the council, and city leaders stayed loyal to Green. 

Talus was initially set to open in 2019 but has been mired in funding and construction delays for years. The delays have cost city residents through lost tax revenues, lost jobs, and continuing costs to maintain and operate the city's golf course there.   

Fast forward the Talus Timeline to today to see how the City signed a May 24, 2024 memorandum of understanding agreement with the developers, financiers, and a new potential developer, Christopher M. George-- President and CEO of CMG Financial. It's a privately held mortgage bank headquartered in San Ramon.  

George will have the right, but no obligation to assume the project's development rights if Green fails to meet a June 30th city deadline to pay off all of the project's outstanding debts.  

There's a lot more to this story, and you can read it all on the Talus Timeline to make it all understandable. You can even right-click to download the City's original documents involved in each step.

THE COSTS

The city has been expecting $7,000,000 in developer impact fees from a completed Talus development, along with $640,000 in annual property taxes within 10 years, $2,000,000 in annual Hotel room TOT revenue, 1,750 temporary construction jobs, and 465 permanent resort jobs adding up to a $19,000,000 employment opportunity for the community. La Quinta would also finally be relieved of the $600,000 in annual golf course, dust, and parkway costs residents are still paying. 

From its overdue debts to delayed foreclosure land sales the Talus luxury resort has many hurdles to overcome, and while its future seems unclear News Channel 3 is committed to holding officials accountable and keeping you informed on the project.    

Again, the Talus Timeline is based on the city's own documents.