New food trucks, murals, housing and more: Desert Hot Springs plans more changes downtown

Desert Hot Springs is slowly shaping its downtown into a more lively area for tourists and residents to visit.

The city has had a longstanding goal to revive its downtown, which is mainly the area along Pierson Boulevard between Mesquite Avenue and Cholla Drive, and Palm Drive between Buena Vista Avenue and 2nd Street. City officials have said they hope to increase tourism revenue by attracting more retail stores, restaurants, bars and other forms of entertainment to open in the area.

In an effort to draw specific businesses there, the council passed moratoriums banning those that could deter from its vision like funeral parlors, warehouses, and car dealerships.

But the city always intended for the moratoriums to be temporary while it figured out exactly what it wanted out of its evolving downtown.

The temporary limits on some business types were terminated in October after the council voted 4-0 to approve zoning code amendments that essentially made them unnecessary. Councilmember Russell Betts recused himself due to owning a business there.

Erick Becerril, the city’s housing and community program manager, said Desert Hot Springs’ community development department has been working to update parts of the municipal code regarding land use. The changes for downtown are meant to help increase economic development there, he said.

Some of the zoning amendments will allow for mixed-use projects with residences, shops and restaurants and remove on-site parking requirements to allow people to develop businesses without having to add more parking, Becerril said.

“Our city and various other cities in the Coachella Valley, we’re working on trying to update our municipal code to try to be cohesive with the growth that we’re seeing in our community,” Becerril said. “So what we’re doing is we’re really focusing on figuring out creative ways to help people develop the downtown and not run into so many hurdles.”

What’s happened so far

Desert Hot Springs loosened some of its regulations on food trucks earlier this year, which paved the way for it to launch “Friday Nights on Pierson,” which allows food trucks and other vendors to gather on Pierson Boulevard. The city held the events for about a month in the spring, but then extended them indefinitely after they proved to be successful.

Hope Scott, owner of the Comfort Food Inn food truck, said the recent changes have helped her business. She said they previously had to park in a field because they had nowhere else to go.

"It was really hard when we first started here, but now it's gotten a lot easier," she said.

Desert Hot Springs also hopes to have more murals. Becerril said the city requested mural proposals and had various submissions. It collected surveys from the public, including high school students. The council will review them in the future, Becerril added.

This follows the unveiling of a colorful mural at the corner of Pierson Boulevard and Palm Drive. The city hosted a block party for it in April, saying the mural is intended to become a community landmark.

Desert Hot Springs has also been working with students from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo to create a plan for downtown. Becerril said students submitted their "downtown concept plan" to the city, which will have a meeting with the downtown steering committee to discuss next steps. This committee is made up of business owners and community stakeholders, according to Becerril.

More change on the way

Julia Briest, managing partner of Briest Realty Group, manages several properties owned by Palm Place LLC. She said three of those buildings are on the list to potentially receive a mural, and its parking lot between 66-389 Pierson Boulevard and the A&G Mart is going to be a food truck park.

The park will include four food trucks and seating with tables for guests. It will eventually have a stage for live music some days of the week. Its hours are daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., though food trucks can select what days, hours and length of time they’d like to park there.

As of Wednesday, the Comfort Food Inn is the only business signed up. Food truck owners can contact Briest at julia@cwcmi.com if they are interested in participating.

Briest said the city’s changes to its downtown regulations allowed for the food truck park and other new ventures. The city will allow permanent mobile food vending vehicle parks, according to an Oct. 17 staff report.

“It's something that the city is very interested in getting this area to be kind of a hub for people to come and walk and shop,” Briest said. “So we are excited to be a part of that and trying to get that moving for our city.”

The food truck park has a temporary permit to be open from Oct. 23 to Jan. 21, but Briest said Palm Place will apply to renew if it goes well.

She added that Palm Place is working on plans to turn the building located at 66-389 Pierson Boulevard into an event center or art gallery, and potentially also use the food truck park for farmers or art markets.

Ani Gasparyan covers the western Coachella Valley cities of Desert Hot Springs and Cathedral City. Reach her at ani.gasparyan@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: More changes in store for Desert Hot Springs’ downtown