Frustration at the long-delayed development of the Dream Hotel in Palm Springs boiled over at the city council meeting the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 9.
Reacting to news of yet another missed deadline, councilmembers floated the possibility of instituting harsh penalties for further delays.
“This isn’t just one milestone. This is 20 years of missed updates and missed opportunities," Councilmember Ron deHarte said during the meeting.
He would go on to add that neighbors living next to the site, which is near the Palm Springs Convention Center, have grown angry at the slow development. Construction on the project was paused years ago, and the partially built foundation of the hotel can be seen behind chain-linked fences.
“I think we need to send
a very very loud message tonight that these milestones aren’t just something on a piece of paper," he said.
The council took no formal action Wednesday, but directed staff to bring back a new agreement that included penalties for missed deadlines.
Councilmembers discussed the Dream Hotel after developer Selene Palm Springs failed to provide the city with a "guaranteed maximum price" by July 30. Selene had been mandated to finalize the total cost of the development by that date as part of the city review process.
Assistant City Manager Flinn Fagg said during the meeting the missed deadline was due to the developer changing main use of the main tower from residential condominiums to hotel condominiums, which altered the exiting requirements. That forced Selene to redesign the stairwells to the hotel.
Still, Fagg said the hotel was still on schedule to restart construction on Oct. 1 and finish by Dec. 30, 2028.
"This is a highly complex project. It has many components to it," he said. "They have completed construction drawings and submitted those to the city.”
But the missed milestone was yet another reminder to the city council that this troubled project may still run into problems.
During the meeting, deHarte floated the idea of reducing the tax rebate the Dream Hotel is set to receive once it opens with every other missed milestone. The city council also decided to fine the developer each time the fence surrounding the project is damaged without a quick repair. If the fence is not repaired quickly, the city may use city employees to fix it and bill Selene for their trouble.
“They’ve gone further than they have before, but it has been 20 years," Councilmember Jeffrey Bernstein said during the meeting. "A lot of the community thinks this is never going to happen. The pressure we’re under is obviously quite extreme from the community.
First proposed in 2007, the Dream Hotel has been extremely slow to get off the ground. The five-story complex, with around 200 rooms, is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. It has been a priority for the city due to its proximity to the convention center.
The city sold around 7.8 acres of public land to Selene in 2015, but payment issues and the COVID-19 pandemic slow development significantly. The city hosted a second groundbreaking in 2024, which was supposed to signify the restarting of construction, but progress has once again been stalled.
In 2025, Selene told city officials the initial $250 million estimate for the project had been $80 million below the actual cost. As a result, the completion date was pushed back from 2027 to 2028.
Now, city officials hope the developer can stick to the current deadline and finally bring a long-awaited project to a close.
Sam Morgen covers local government for The Desert Sun. Reach him at smorgen@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Dream Hotel, delayed 19 years in Palm Springs, misses another deadline
