The Gravel Lot Where La Quinta Parks for Its Art Shows Is Under Contract for a Hotel. This Season, It's Still Parking

Three city-owned parcels sit between the La Quinta Civic Center campus and the shops and restaurants of Old Town. They are covered in gravel and used from time to time for festival and event parking. As Greater Palm Springs Business Insider put it, they are not much to look at. The land covers about 3.55 acres. On Aug. 4, the La Quinta City Council voted 4-0 to approve a purchase and sale agreement that would sell it to Gather Capital for a proposed hotel with 150 to 180 rooms.

The deal is real, but it moves slowly. The way it was written keeps the lots doing their current job through the coming art season. It also hands the city a new job: replacing the parking that the Village's winter calendar has come to rely on.

What the council approved in August

The vote approved a process, not a building. The agreement sets an anticipated price of $2.55 million, based on $16.50 per square foot for about 154,638 square feet. Before the land changes hands, it requires both sides to settle almost every major question. Under the terms Business Insider reported:

1. Gather puts a $100,000 earnest money deposit into escrow. It is released to the city in two $50,000 payments as milestones are met.
2. Within six months of escrow opening, Gather must submit a complete design review package and all entitlement applications. The city must show that enough electrical service is or will be available.
3. Within six months after entitlements, Gather must submit construction drawings and permit applications.
4. Escrow is expected to close within 18 months of opening, with up to a 60-day extension allowed. Until then, the property stays in city hands.

No hotel brand, operator, total development cost or financing partner has been announced. The design would come from Hannouche Architects, which the city describes as a modern take on La Quinta Village's architectural heritage. The city is aiming for a possible opening in fiscal year 2029-30. That date is preliminary and depends on permits, financing, utility work and construction.

The clause that keeps the gravel in use

The hotel site serves as overflow parking for four recurring public events: the La Quinta Art Celebration, Art on Main Street, the Certified Farmers Market and the city's holiday tree lighting. The agreement lets the city keep issuing temporary parking permits for those events until escrow closes. Mayor Linda Evans said the property would stay available while La Quinta finishes its Village parking study and weighs longer-term options.

That clause shapes the coming season. Escrow can run as long as 18 months once it opens, so the 2026-27 events that use this land can plan around it the same way they always have.

The season that depends on it

Here is the run of Village events that overlap with the lots, in calendar order:

The farmers market is the only one already running. Old Town's page lists it every Sunday from October through May. The city's tree lighting page gives Friday, Dec. 4. The upcoming-events card on the city's ENCORE listing shows Dec. 5, so check the tree lighting page before you head over.

ENCORE is the largest crowd of the four. According to the city's event listing, 154 jury-selected artists will show work in 11 media categories. Forty-three of them are new to the Celebration, and 14 work in glass. This year's featured artists are Rebecca Molayem, whose painting "Desert Reunion" is the official poster, at Booth 333, and David Palmer, whose Pop Art-meets-classical work is on the official T-shirt, at Booth 501. Exhibitors also include Erin Hanson, known for her Open Impressionism landscapes; Keoni, a three-time Smithsonian exhibitor who carves sugar maple; and Tom Boatright.

Music runs all four days. Scott Carter plays the Amphitheater Stage each morning, and Jeff Bonds plays the Oasis Lounge from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Afternoon sets on the Amphitheater Stage feature Shaken Not Stirred on Friday, Johnny Meza & Company with saxophonist Walle Larsson on Saturday, and guitarist Alex Santana on Sunday. This year's designated charity is Tools For Tomorrow, which runs free after-school arts literacy programs for Coachella Valley students in grades three through five.

Admission is $25 for one day or $30 for a multi-day pass, and children under 12 get in free. Self-parking is $10. Valet is $15 on the organizer's Getting Here page but $20 in its Oct. 9 preview, so bring enough for the higher price. The Getting Here page also lists free parking at the Village of La Quinta.

Art on Main Street opens its free season two weeks after ENCORE, with more than 80 artists along Main Street. Between the Sunday market, the November Celebration and the Saturday art days, the Village has events on its calendar most weekends from now into December. All four of them share the same overflow land.

Why the parking structure is the date to watch

The hotel depends on a new parking structure, and the agreement makes that structure a separate public project that the city funds and leads. Within the first six-month milestone, La Quinta must solicit bids and award a construction contract. The agreement doesn't set the structure's size, location, cost or completion date.

If the hotel opens before the structure is finished, the city has to provide alternative parking close enough, and in large enough quantity, to cover the hotel's needs and the city's own parking requirements. That obligation lasts until the permanent structure is ready. Business Insider summed up the tradeoff this way: the hotel would not simply use up a vacant site, because the city would have to replace parking that "has become important to the city's event economy."

So the future of Art Celebration weekends depends more on that bid award and on the Village parking study than on the hotel. Those two decisions will set where cars go once the gravel is no longer available.

Power is the other condition. The city has to take steps to make sure at least 2,500 amps of electrical service can reach the site. Gather keeps the right to decide whether the Imperial Irrigation District's costs, timing and conditions work commercially. "There needs to be power in order to deliver," Gather president Tanner Erickson told the council, according to Business Insider. Power has already slowed other projects. The city's approved 125-room Hampton Inn at La Quinta Drive and Auto Centre Drive had its entitlement extended through January 2028 after its developer ran into uncertainty over electrical service. La Quinta is also part of a separate $23.25 million expansion of the Avenue 58 substation, which is expected to serve about 3,000 to 4,000 new homes or the equivalent load.

What the paseo would add to Main Street

The concept site plan puts the hotel between Calle Tampico and Avenida La Fonda, east of Desert Club Drive and directly across from Old Town La Quinta. A paseo would run through the property as a continuation of Main Street, giving people a walking route between the civic campus and Old Town. Mayor Evans tied that link to the city's focus on walkability in the Village.

Erickson described the paseo as space that could carry Old Town activities, including farmers markets, Cars and Coffee gatherings and holiday events, toward the library and City Hall, according to Greater Palm Springs Business Insider. Those are the same events that park on the site today. If the project gets built, the market and tree-lighting crowds would walk a new stretch of Main Street on land where they now park.

City Manager Jon McMillen said the sale proceeds could go toward Village infrastructure needs, from "power to drainage to parking." For now, the parcels are still city property and still covered by event parking permits, and ENCORE opens on the Civic Center lawn on Thursday, Nov. 12.

If you're weighing how the Village's next few years of construction could affect homes near Old Town and the Civic Center, Lori Ebeling follows these council decisions closely and can walk you through what has actually been approved so far. Schedule a 15-Minute Consultation.