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Palm Springs and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians will hold a special meeting this summer to discuss a proposed industrial project that would cover 2.8 million square feet on tribal land located within the city.
If approved by the tribal council, the four-building Desert Mountain View Business Park will be developed on 217 acres of open space near Highway 111 and Tipton Road south of Interstate 10.
The project, which will be developed on the north end of Palm Springs near several other large industrial projects, is being built without signed tenants. Desert Mountain View Business Park could create as many as 1,405 warehouse jobs and 225 office jobs, with most of those positions to be filled by local residents, according to a city staff report.
The report doesn’t say how much the project will cost, how long it will take to build and in how many phases, or whether negotiations are being held with possible tenants.
Irvine-based Shopoff Realty Investments, which specializes in developing underused and overlooked properties with long-term commercial potential, will build the project under the name Desert Mountain View LLC.
The site is divided in two by Union Pacific Railroad tracks, and large electric transmission lines cross its southern end, which is otherwise vacant. The eastern half includes an inactive ranch and several dormant agricultural fields, some trees, and several structures, according to the report.
Because the site is owned by the tribe, Palm Springs will have no say regarding whether it’s built, how much ground it will cover or what it will look like after it’s completed. The special meeting scheduled for June 3 at the Palm Springs Convention Center – a joint session between the city council and the tribal council – is meant to clarify project details for Coachella Valley residents.
“More time is needed for the developer to resolve a number of technical items related to the project,” a statement posted Jan. 9 on Palm Springs’ website reads. “(The) June meeting will provide both the public, and city staff, additional time to review the project, and the complex environmental documents, so that the meeting can be as productive and informative as possible.”
The statement does not say what those “technical items” are and it admits that the city’s role in the project is limited. Representatives from the city and the tribe declined to comment further.
The meeting will be televised live on the city’s YouTube channel. The tribal council is expected to rule on the project by the end of this year, according to the statement.
Nearly three decades ago, both the city and the tribe foresaw the possibility of something like Desert Mountain View Business Park happening.
In December 1998, both parties agreed that the city would review and comment upon any development project that would be built on tribal-owned land within Palm Springs’ borders.
That agreement requires the city to conduct a conformity report, which explains where a project doesn’t meet city regulations. It may also suggest how the project might be improved.
Ultimately, because Native American tribes are designated sovereign nations by the federal government, the a tribe has final say over the project.
On Dec, 10, the city council approved its conformity report, declaring that Desert Mountain View Business Park will help Palm Springs meet one of its major goals: to attract businesses that provide well-paying jobs.
However, the proposed project falls short of Palm Springs’ land-use ordinances, which is why the city called the special meeting. Most of the report’s recommendations – make certain the project site meets the city’s water efficiency standards, require the developer to set land aside for public parks, add or upgrade infrastructure, make improvements to fire safety – are the kind of city requests of a developer regarding a larger industrial project.
Desert Mountain View Business Park also has “significant and unavoidable air quality impacts” that are often found in a large industrial project, according to the tribe’s environmental impact study.
If Palm Springs had final say on the project it would have to change the zoning of the site from open land to industrial in order to approve it, the city report states.
The city report also declares that Palm Springs’ general plan and zoning codes are to act as a “guiding framework” for the project, which it said did not happen in this case.
Only a few industrial projects in the Inland region are comparable to the Desert Mountain View Business Park, most notably the 2,600-acre World Logistics Center in Moreno Valley, which will have 40 million square feet of industrial buildings when it’s completed, and the six-story, 4.5-million-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center that opened in Chino in July 2004.
That facility is reportedly Amazon’s largest fulfillment center in the United States.
It is in the Agua Caliente tribe’s best interest to stay as close to the city’s zoning laws and general plan as it can, even though the Palm Springs City Council can’t change its final action, said Joseph Brady, president of The Bradco Cos. in Victorville.
“The city of Palm Springs is very hands-on, and it’s very aware of what the tribe is trying to do,” said Brady, a veteran industrial broker in the Inland Empire. “The tribe also knows that it has to do this correctly. They don’t want to do anything that harms the environment, or creates any issues that have to be mitigated.
“But it’s a great project, and I think it will create a lot of jobs.”
