By Skip Descant, Courtesy of mydesert.com and The Desert Sun
The new Hotel Palomar planned for downtown Palm Springs has grown by a few rooms.
Developers now propose a posh hotel project, set to be a cornerstone of a massive remake of downtown, with 185-188 rooms, up from about 165.
The increase is a nod to satisfy officials with the Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, the company set to operate the property.
“They came back and told us that we were exactly at the bottom of the curve,” said John Wessman, of the Wessman Development Company, which is leading the development of the 13.2-acre site spanning mostly the area south of the Hyatt Regency on Palm Canyon Drive down to Tahquitz Canyon Way, otherwise known as the Desert Fashion Plaza mall.
The hotel company wanted more revenue-earning rooms to shore-up its operational costs, Wessman told the Palm Springs Planning Commission on Wednesday in a work session to introduce the group to the public-approval process.
The added rooms would not become part of the main hotel building, but would be added as a three-floor addition to a nearby retail building and would be connected to the main hotel via an overhead glass-enclosed walkway, according to updated drawings presented at the meeting.
Already, the 70-foot tall hotel is raising the ire of neighborhood groups who say it’s too tall for Palm Springs’ village scale and could block the view of the nearby San Jacinto Mountains.
“We are very much concerned about the height and juxtaposition of the structure between Palm Canyon and cherished mountains,” wrote Frank Tysen, chairman of the Historical Tennis Club Neighborhood Organization and owner of the Casa Cody Country Inn nearby, in a letter to the mayor and Palm Springs City Council.
The association went on to say it supports the redevelopment and supports the idea of a hotel, however not at the cost of losing Palm Springs’ neighborhood character.
