Rendering of the rooftop pool of the planned Andaz Palm Springs Hotel
The Palm Springs City Council has authorized the City Attorney’s Office to proceed with legal action in order to force the owners of four hotels – the Andaz Hotel on Palm Canyon Drive, the Dream Hotel on Amado Road, the Orchid Tree on Belardo Road and the TOVA on North Palm Canyon – to complete those projects.
All four hotel projects have stalled, resulting in uncompleted projects. These properties constitute a nuisance to their neighborhoods and to the community at large.
In light of the waning COVID-19 numbers and the return of the tourism industry, the city of Palm Springs expects these owners and developers to see these hotel projects to completion.
The City Attorney’s Office will be seeking the appointment of a court-ordered receiver. The receiver will be charged by the court with completing the hotels or demolishing them if that is determined by the receiver and the court to be most appropriate.
“We’ve given these projects all the latitude we could,” said city manager, David Ready. “The Andaz property, for example, has been on the books through two economic downturns and a bankruptcy and then COVID but we can’t let them stand behind COVID now as a reason to not move forward. Even if they are able to perform – and we hope they do, we want them to, and we’ll do anything to support them – it may still be quite a while from now until they really get started. If they can make it happen, we can always pull back on the legal proceeding. But if they can’t perform, then the legal proceeding will be on a parallel track and could lead to finding a developer that could.”
While the owners of the four properties will still own them, the costs of the receivers and the costs of the completion or demolition, if necessary, will be borne by the property owners themselves.
“The city of Palm Springs is always willing to work with our property owners,” said Mayor Christy Holstege. “But, at some point, if those property owners do not do what is right for their neighbors and the rest of the city, we are forced to use whatever legal tools are available to us in order to protect our residents, businesses and visitors.”
In response to our inquiry about the status of the former Andaz property, Dallas-based Hall Group provided the following statement:
“Since recently obtaining ownership of the property, we have been actively pursuing the continued development of what was initially planned to be an Andaz Palm Springs hotel. Collectively with our architects, construction consultants, engineers and designers, a tremendous amount of work, effort and capital has already gone into getting the project in a position to recommence construction. We understand the community’s desire to see this project completed, and while we still have work to do, we expect to be in a position to officially restart construction later this year. We are excited about the hotel and the opportunity to bring an exceptional asset to the City of Palm Springs and its many visitors.”
