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Politics & Government

Planning Commission Recommends Approval Of Rosewood Hotel

The Rosewood Hotel would be located at 45640 Highway 74.

The Palm Desert Planning Commission recommended plans for the Rosewood Hotel Tuesday night.

In two separate 4-1 votes, commissioners voted to send the project to the Palm Desert City Council, with Commissioner Connor Limont dissenting. The vote followed a two-hour public hearing in a packed Council Chamber.

The hotel, which would be three stories with a partial fourth floor, would be built at 45640 Highway 74, west of Ocotillo Drive, and south of the Imago Art Gallery. The hotel will have up to 82 rooms and 59 condos, according to project spokesman Matt Joblon.

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Joblon noted that El Paseo is the only big “name” shopping district without a 5-star hotel, saying that Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and South Beach in Miami are among those jeweled with 5 star hotels.

Hotel supporter Mary Ellen Kelly of Palm Desert summed up her remarks by asking the commission “do we, as a city, want to move backward or move forward?”

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A handful spoke in opposition to the project. Those who did mostly complained of the sheer size of the hotel, and its ability to blend in with the local landscape. 

“If this building was placed next to College of the Desert, would you allow it because if its size?” Sandpiper resident Jan Kaufman asked the commission. She complained that the partial fourth story of the hotel would be detrimental to views of the mountains. 

Letters to the planning commission were in favor of the project by a 10 to 1 ratio, according to a staff report, but it was noted that 19 letters in opposition were written by the same person.

The complaints were mainly about the height of the hotel, traffic, noise "and one person mentioned lighting," said Tony Bagato, the city's principal planner.

Others along El Paseo -- Palm Desert's high-end shopping district -- have expressed support for the Rosewood Hotel, which would be the first five-star hotel in the valley. Most were hoping the hotel’s planning walkway access to El Paseo would revive businesses there and increase tax revenue for the city.

Joblon said the project hopes to deliver the first 5-star hotel to the desert.

“Once we do that, everyone else will want to do that.  The relationship between the hotel and El Paseo is special and will only benefit both,” Joblon said.

The hotel could bring up to $1 million in revenue to the city through its transient occupancy tax.

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