$277M Coachella Valley Arena Gets Approval From RivCo Supervisors

COACHELLA VALLEY, CA — A privately-funded sports and entertainment project in Thousand Palms that is slated to bring professional hockey, concerts and entertainment events to the Coachella Valley was unanimously approved by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

Los Angeles-based Oak View Group is building the Coachella Valley Arena on 43.35 acres of H.N. & Frances C. Berger Foundation owned-land located north of Interstate 10, east of Cook Street. The arena will be the home of the Seattle Kraken’s Coachella Valley American Hockey League team. The arena and a training facility will be more than 300,000 square feet and feature 11,000-plus seats, according to officials.

The $277 million project is expected to break ground soon, with completion and opening targeted for fall 2022.

Supervisor V. Manuel Perez, whose Fourth District includes the Coachella Valley, called the project a game-changer.

“The fact that this is going to bring $11 million in state and local tax revenues for our county and will be helpful to the immediate area, that’s why we have so much support for this project," Perez said. There are so many reasons why this is so important, one that I would like to express is the community benefit aspect, especially that our schools and our youth will have access. With California State University, San Bernardino Palm Desert Campus down the street, it will provide jobs, part-time and full-time jobs for our students.”

According to a study by Oak View Group and another commissioned by the Greater Palm Springs Convention & Visitors Bureau, the arena’s economic impact is projected at $108 million annual direct spending from visitors; $141 million in business spending annually; 1,400 construction jobs; over 1,500 additional jobs once the arena is built and opened; and $11 million annually in sales and state and local taxes.

Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke thanked the county, Perez and others for support of the project, which he said "will provide a significant financial boost to stimulating, supporting, and sustaining the local economy.

"We continue to be committed to the community and in making Coachella Valley Arena a major destination for the biggest artists, concerts, and sporting events in the world, and are pleased the arena, which comes at no cost to taxpayers, will have such a positive, life-changing impact for the entire Valley," Leiweke continued.

See renderings of the future Coachella Valley Arena, courtesy of Oak View Group, here.

The Coachella Valley Arena has been in the news of late. Oak View Group announced in September that plans to construct the arena in Palm Springs in partnership with the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians had fallen apart.

The proposed downtown location on tribal land drew some community ire. A dozen Palm Springs residents calling themselves "Palm Springs Together" mailed letters to state officials pleading for them to get involved in the proposal, arguing the arena builders should be required to draft customary environmental reports.

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians is a federally recognized tribe and a sovereign nation with full authority over its land-use decisions, meaning it is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act land use requirements.

A report from Palm Springs' Department of Planning Services noted, "the city has no authority to approve or deny projects undertaken by the tribe on its own land."

With the Palms Springs spot no longer on the table, Oak View Group teamed up with Palm Desert-based H.N. & Frances C. Berger Foundation, a local nonprofit, which is leasing the land to the company for the project.

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