College of the Desert president ‘very’ confident Palm Springs campus will open in 2027

When College of The Desert’s president was asked by Palm Springs’ mayor Thursday how confident she was the long-delayed Palm Springs campus will open in 2027 as scheduled, she replied with one word.

“Very,” said Laura Hope, the interim president and superintendent, who started at the school last year.

Hope provided that timeline near the end of a lengthy presentation she and the college’s director of West Valley education centers gave to the city council. The two discussed both the current state of plans for the campus and how COD plans to make them a reality.The timeline given by Hope, which calls for the project to go out to bid this fall with construction to begin in the winter, appeared to match the she gave during a presentation in October that was open to the community and attended by multiple city council members.

During Thursday's presentation, Hope also showed several renderings of the planned campus, which is set to take up 167,000 square feet on the southwest side of the intersection of Tahquitz Canyon Way and Farrell Drive north of Palm Springs High School. It's the former site of Palm Springs Mall.

Among the several slides was a site plan that showed the campus will consist of four main sections. The largest, which will be called the Accelerator and located on the southeast side of the campus, will be a multifunctional space that Hope said will be both the hub of instruction and learning on the campus and “the most flexible space.”

To the north of the Accelerator will be the school’s Culinary Institute, which will house both culinary instructional areas and a showcase kitchen for cooking demonstrations. Hope said that area could eventually be the home of a unique bachelor’s degree program in casino management, the first outside of Nevada.

On the northeast corner would be a 7,000-square-foot event center. Much of the western portion of the campus, meanwhile, would be taken up by 841 parking spaces with the fourth structure, which will be used for maintenance and operations facilities, in the middle of the parking area. The director of West Valley education centers, Scott Adkins, said the number of parking spaces has been reduced from previous plans because the school believes shared transportation options will become more popular in the future.

A portion of the northern section of the site fronting Tahquitz Drive would initially be developed into an open lawn area. However, the director of west valley education centers said the college’s intention was for that section to be open for future development with the addition of a learning hotel that has been dropped from current plans being one option for it.

Council praises plans, progress

Overall, the city council appeared to like what they saw from the COD leaders, with multiple members expressing support for the process and gratitude for the leaders.

“Thank you,” said Councilmember Lisa Middleton. “This has been a long time coming and there have been some detours along the way. But what we are seeing today is I think reflective of what was promised to the community and what the community wanted to see happen.”

Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein echoed Middleton’s comments, thanking Hope and saying that while it had taken a long time, it was great to see the campus becoming a reality.

Those comments presented a marked shift from the frostiness that has defined much of the council’s dialogue with college leaders over the past few years, which saw councilmembers question and, at times, criticize the college’s leadership over the failure go break ground nearly two decades after Palm Springs residents first voted to provide nearly $350 million in funding to build a campus in Palm Springs.

Those tensions reached a zenith in September 2022 when the council sued the college for failing to provide public records related to decision making around the campus.

Councilmember Christy Holstege directly invoked some of the issues Thursday, saying that she and Middleton had served on the council since 2017 and had previously been assured that shovels would be in the ground by 2022 and the campus completed by 2024. However, she too praised the recent progress.

“Yes, we’ve been on some detours and some difficult places and I’m just grateful for the college and the board of trustees’ commitment to this campus,” she said.

Middleton also praised the involvement of Ron Oden, a former Palm Springs mayor who was elected to represent Palm Springs and a sliver of Cathedral City on the college’s board of trustees in May 2023.

During the presentation, Hope said the college has committed $405.7 million to the project and has already spent $56 million. She said that in the past week, the board had unanimously approved the issuance of $200 million in bonds. She then said “a lot of things are going to start happening,” including the submission of plans for the campus to the state for its approval and then the start of planning for construction.

She noted that in November, the college had completed the design development process which involve the determination of specific materials in the project and the creation of scale drawings. She sad the final most detailed drawings that will be used to guide construction will be finished this spring.

She also added that she is confident in the timeline she gave in part because the school has already been in touch with the state about how to expedite the approval process, which she said can sometimes be the longest part of a state campus project.

“Once we get that feedback and we get any direction from them, we can start moving very quickly,” she said. “And I think the $200 million bond sale is indicative of the board's confidence in that timeline as well, because we need access to that cash in order to move forward.”

Paul Albani-Burgio covers growth, development and business in the Coachella Valley. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and email him at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: COD president says she is confident in 2027 opening of new campus