Palm Springs, Desert Fashion Plaza, and Prop J

Desert Fashion Plaza, a block-long shopping mall in the center of downtown Palm Springs, has sat empty like a rotting white elephant for close to 15 years while a series of dubious redevelopment plans have been considered and rejected for the area over the last decade. The latest installment in the saga is a 25-year one-cent sales tax increase, Proposition J, that is being proposed in this Tuesday's election which will supposedly give the city the funds it needs to create a vibrant downtown.



Many residents are not buying into the plan, principally because it guarantees $43 million upfront to the multimillionaire real estate developer John Wessman who has owned the site since 2002. Wessman's initial proposal was to have a mixed condo-retail complex that was six stories tall, even though there was a 35-foot height limit in downtown, and the plan would have effectively destroyed the San Jacinto mountain views for anyone not staying in the place.



The site originally housed the luxurious Desert Inn Hotel complex, one of the old movie star hangouts, but 1978 brought Proposition C which lowered property taxes and which hit municipalities hard. So Palm Springs turned to redevelopment plans and made a deal with the DeBartolo family, owners of the San Francisco 49ers, to build a huge shopping mall which was completed in 1986.



According to most accounts I have heard from people who lived here at the time, the complex was quite beautiful, with marble floors and Saks Fifth Avenue and I. Magnin as anchor clients. "I hate shopping malls," one elderly gentlemen told me, "but that was the only one I ever liked." However, it was not a success in the long run for a number of reasons, including the fact that they charged for parking in their underground lot. In Southern California, free parking is considered a god-given right.



Another factor in its decline was the fact that the upscale clientele they were counting on had mostly moved further southeast in the Coachella Valley to Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert and La Quinta, where fancy new shopping malls were also being built. Desert Fashion Plaza soon became a ghost town. Eddie DeBartolo, with Willie Brown, Jr. leading the charge, put a measure on the California state ballot in the mid-1990s to allow gambling on his properties, but the measure failed, and they sold the empty shopping center to a San Diego corporation in 1998 for $20 million. Subsequently, it ended up in the hands of John Wessman in 2002 who has been blackmailing the city into providing public funds for essentially private plans.



On Wednesday afternoon, there was a protest against the Prop J proposal and the hanging of a huge sign on an abandoned Bank of America building on Palm Canyon Drive touting the measure. Wessman and his supporters countered with signage and a protest of their own, although their promise of new jobs rang a little hollow since all the construction companies that were being paraded on the street were from other towns rather than Palm Springs.



People are so sick of the dead shopping mall in the center of town that they are ready to vote for the measure just to get "something" done, even if it's just another dumb shopping mall.



Others are urging a no vote and starting from scratch, using eminent domain to take the property from Wessman at its appraised price of $16 million.



The possibility of the latter happening is just about nil since Wessman is nothing if not politically connected. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out, just as it was interesting watching the newswoman above try to walk in her provocative outfit.

Preserving Palm Springs

There was a public party in Palm Springs' historic tennis district on Saturday, celebrating the designation of the Casa Cody Inn as a "Class 1 Historical Site" by the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation (click here).



The neighborhood covers approximately six square blocks between downtown and the San Jacinto Mountains, and is host to about a dozen small hotels.



The Casa Cody is a conglomeration of historic houses, one of which belonged to the opera singer Lawrence Tibbett. The small stage where he indulged in theatricals with his friend Charlie Chaplin is still there. (Click here for the hotel's website.)



Palm Springs is currently in an interesting moment of transition. Most of the wealthy in Palm Springs have moved southeast in the Coachella Valley over the last 30 years to towns like Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert and La Quinta.



These places tend to be more Republican and strictly divided between a small group of rich white people on the hills and canyons and country clubs who are serviced by large adjacent towns populated by Mexican labor.



Over the last ten years, particularly since the AIDS drugs arrived and more gay men have been living into old age, Palm Springs has become the destination for gay retirees from all over the world. It's not organized in any fashion but seems to be happening of its own accord, which reminds me a bit of San Francisco in the late 1970s.



This influx has arrived just in time because the town needs saving from a number of developers. These include the Agua Caliente Indian tribe who have proposed transforming the town into a mini Las Vegas, to John Wessman, a developer who wants to turn the place into an Orange County multi-storied mall.



As Ginny Foat, the controversial Palm Springs lesbian councilwoman (click here for the story) once put it: “What gays and lesbians discover when they come here is a city that needs fixing up – with a little fairy dust."



Foat was at the party to give an official proclamation to Therese Hayes and Frank Tysen, the owners of Casa Cody, who have created the inn as a labor of love, and who have fought for preserving the beauty of greater Palm Springs.



In a recent online article on Palm Springs architecture (click here), there was a marvelous quote: "When he started buying the buildings in 1986, owner Frank Tysen recalled, people would say, 'Palm Springs is dying. Why are you investing in these?' Small inns have helped revive Palm Springs. We were lucky that progress passed us by, but the challenge is not to lose the ambiance. What we're saving is a time warp. That's why people want to be here."



The vacant lot next to Casa Cody is under the control of John Wessman who wants to build a "hip, boutique" hotel that is five stories tall, and blocks everybody's view of the mountains. Hopefully, the financial meltdown will stop some of the worst of these plans, along with the dedicated advocacy of the people at Casa Cody's open house.

Seeing the Light at the Palm Springs Art Museum

At the corner of Palm Canyon Drive and Baristo in downtown Palm Springs, a Midcentury Modern classic by architect E. Stewart Williams was built in 1960 for Santa Fe Federal Savings and Loan. By the 21st century, it was a decaying mess that housed the offices of local real estate developer John Wessman who is now defacing another section of Palm Canyon Drive with a taxpayer-funded hotel and shopping mall complex.



Wessman's original plans for the historic building was to surround it with multi-story condos, which the Planning Commission and preservationists managed to prevent. About four years ago, the Palm Springs Art Museum bought the building and raised close to $4 million for its restoration as an Architecture and Design Center annex to the larger museum three blocks away.



The Center opened last year, and the place looks tremendous.



Currently on view is an exhibit called Seeing the Light: Illuminating Objects featuring "reflective, translucent, or highly polished" art works.



You are greeted at the door by Hess Light Bulb, a large prop from theater-opera director Robert Wilson's 1979 stagework Death, Destruction, and Detroit I.



Inventor Buckminster Fuller, another multi-hyphenate lionized in the 1970s, was represented by and his 1976 metallic Complex of Jitterbugs.



There was a section of the exhibit dedicated to powerful women's work, including Angela Ellsworth's Seer Bonnet XVIII (Ruth) from 2011. Ellsworth is a Church of Latter Day Saints apostate who is a descendent of Lorenzo Snow, the fifth Prophet of the Mormon Church.



Lorenzo had nine wives, and Ellsworth has created a series of sunbonnets representing all of them. The materials for Ruth are fabric, steel, wood, and 31,863 pearl corsage pins. It's outrageously beautiful and horrifying simultaneously.



Hanging hearby is Pat Lasch's 2006 A Couple's Prayer (from the Prayer Cloth Series), a series of gold leaf squares on netting backed by heavy Arches paper with Buddhist prayers sealed inside, meditating on her recently deceased parents.



The only walls in the exhibit are two panels displaying Jim Isermann's metallic decals.



The Center just announced that admission will be free every day for the next two years thanks to an anonymous donor. So if you are in Palm Springs, check it out, and maybe you will be greeted by one of the sweet museum "ambassadors" like Betsy above, who looked smashing in front of the fabulous blinds.

Downtown Teardown

A huge, block-long, downtown Palm Springs shopping mall built by the DeBartolo family in 1986 is currently being torn down.



There was a close election in November of 2011 authorizing a sales tax increase for the project, with much of the money going to local real estate developer John Wessman.



Unfortunately, Wessman is building a new shopping mall on the site, with plans that include a six-story hotel that will be grotesquely out of place in the low-lying downtown.



Tourists don't go to Palm Springs for a hip, happening, city feel which is how this is being sold. Most of them are trying to escape the freeways and shopping malls that already blot the California landscape. The photo above, by the way, is across the street from the proposed new shopping mall.

A Merry Marilyn Xmas

However one feels about the gigantic Forever Marilyn statue by Seward Johnson in downtown Palm Springs, there is no denying that the piece has been a hit with both tourists and locals.



Many of the student painted Christmas banners on Palm Canyon Drive this year focus on Marilyn Monroe iconography...



...including a few parody items such as a swarthy Santa with hairy legs posing for his elves, a Santa having his picture taken under the statue, and a Santa who laments, "What a distraction!"



Part of the statue's appeal is that the old bank which used to take up the corner of Tahquitz and Palm Canyon has been razed, which opens up a downtown view to the glorious San Jacinto mountains just a few blocks away. Oddly enough, the giant Marilyn looks perfectly in proportion with the foothills. The ubiquitous Coachella Valley real estate developer John Wessman is proposing a six-story luxury hotel for the site which is a terrible idea. It would be great if the city just bought the statue and kept the open space as a tourist attraction.

Early-Century Modern Signs of the Times

Leaving the land of death, I continued on the train to Palm Springs where hideously designed new signage was promising that "Life = Fun."



As the psychedelically decorated "A+ Home Health Care" vehicle in front of the St. Baristo condos reminded, Palm Springs is affectionately known as "God's Little Waiting Room."



Across the street from the condo complex is an historic 1935 Protestant church that was never called St. Baristo but which was part of the redevelopment plans of developer John Wessman, who wanted to turn the religious complex into a spa.



This didn't pan out so well so the church property is now up for sale, which was a bizarre sight.



Down the street on Palm Canyon Drive, one of the mid-century modern buildings has emptied out of most of its tenants, including one that pretty much sums up the casino financial structure of the U.S. economy.



The cracking signage spelled out "Pit Boss Empire USA."



Across the street, another mid-century modern masterpiece by E. Stewart Williams is free of ugly commercial signage because until recently it was a Washington Mutual banking branch and the Chase conglomerate hasn't had time to put up its logo yet.



The most unusual signage in Palm Springs, though, is a homemade screed that's been taped to walls and telephone poles all over town by either a speed freak or a schizophrenic who wants you to know you're not alone if you're hearing voices and hate Lisa aka: Victoria, Carmen (but her real name is Sheree). The handbill publisher also advises that "You are not crazy...you are being electronically harassed!!!" And who's to say he/she is wrong?

Holidays Celebrity Construction in Palm Springs

There are construction cranes all over Palm Springs these days, and the most alarming is the new shopping mall development by John Wessman on Palm Canyon Drive which is looking nothing like the original plans submitted to the voters four years ago. The two-term Palm Springs mayor, a handsome gay realtor named Steve Pougnet, was an honest broker for years in balancing development and preservation in the small city of 40,000, but he got greedy and began accepting "consulting contracts" in the six figures for unspecified services with more than one developer.



This was exposed by an investigative journalism series in the local paper, The Desert Sun, and eventually the FBI arrived in September and hauled away files from City Hall. Unlike San Francisco, where that kind of behavior is considered business as usual and the San Francisco Chronicle ignores institutionalized municipal corruption, Palm Springs voters recently booted out the old slate and elected a new mayor, Rob Moon above right, posing with my friend Cory Dingle.



We walked down Palm Canyon to the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Francis Stevens Park last Thursday, passing under banners created by local schoolkids who have an annual competition for the honor of having their painted signage flying over the main drag all December.



We also saw evidence of other holiday traditions, as evidenced by the Menorah bolted to the roof of the car.



At the tree lighting, there was a Palm Springs High School madrigal group singing carols...



...delicious cookies, and not-so-hot chocolate.



There are usually a bizarre selection of local celebrities in attendance, and this year it was (left to right) Palm Springs Councilwoman Ginny Foat with poodle who lost the recent mayoral election even though she was the clear favorite in money and name recognition, supermodel/actress/businesswoman Beverly Johnson, TV's Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner, Mayor Moon, and Linda Gray from the old Dallas TV show edging out of the frame.



Unusual for Hollywood and Palm Springs, the 66-year-old Bionic Woman Wagner looked like she was aging fairly naturally and well.



At the Palm Springs City Council meeting the night before, disgraced outgoing Mayor Steve Pougnet made a few remarks and then it was time for public comment. The final speaker was Frank Tysen, a small hotelier who was a onetime ally of the mayor and then an adamant critic. "You threw it all away, Steve, a promising career, political allies, the trust of this town." Let's see if the new regime can alter some of the recent dumb development deals that are already in place.