What was once the old Desert Fashion Plaza in downtown Palm Springs is starting to look a lot more like the imagined retail, hotel, restaurants, office space, and outdoor venue that is planned for the prime real estate.  While driving on Palm Canyon the other day, I saw something that got me even more excited about the forthcoming downtown complex;  a banner hanging over the second story of one of the buildings that read "West Elm".  Here is that banner.

For those of you who don't know, West Elm is a furniture store that offers customers modern contemporary furniture at a moderate price point.  I've seen West Elm stores in many large cities across the US, but never in a small city like Palm Springs.  I've always enjoyed browsing these stores and think this brand, which I've learned will be an anchor tenant at the new complex, is a great fit for a city that embraces modernism like Palm Springs does.  From what I've read, Palm Springs will be the smallest city West Elm, part of the William-Sonoma brand, will call home.  Now, I don't want to get ahead of myself (which is hard to do since William-Sonoma is one of my favorite stores), but a William-Sonoma store may not be far behind. 

The picture above shows the Northern most part of the construction.  The Southern most part of the 14 acre site (which is at the intersection of Palm Canyon Dr. and Tahquitz) looks like this:

This part of the development is where the project's Kimpton Hotel, set to open in October 2016, is being erected.