Council approves $4 million purchase of part of historic Town & Country Center for new fire station

The Palm Springs City Council on Wednesday approved an agreement to purchase part of the Town & Country Center on Indian Canyon Drive from Grit Development to use for the city’s new fire station.

The $4 million agreement will allow the city to purchase a portion of the historic buildings and surrounding area for construction of a new Fire Station No. 1. The purchase includes about 0.95 acres along Indian Canyon Drive, including the building’s center courtyard, portions of the historic complex and land currently occupied by apartment buildings slated for demolition. 

The city has been searching in earnest for a new location for a downtown fire station since February 2025, when a city-commissioned consultant report on fire services found that Fire Station No. 1 is “woefully out of date and insufficient to serve the downtown area,” said Assistant City Manager Flinn Fagg. But even before that report, fixing the dated downtown station has been a priority for “at least 20 years,” Fagg said. 

“Our community deserves a modern day firehouse that can adequately house the firefighters of Palm Springs as well as deliver the services needed by the city. While our downtown station has given us a good run of service and lasted nearly 70 years, it is no longer capable of meeting our city’s demands,” said Brandon Wright, vice president of the Palm Springs Firefighters Association, at Wednesday’s meeting. 

The city previously considered building a new fire station on a city-owned parking lot adjacent to the existing fire station, but received public pushback over the loss of parking spaces. The current fire station is a Class 1 Historic building, which limits the city’s ability to renovate or alter the structure. 

Wednesday’s vote finalized an agreement that came out of several closed session city council discussions on the matter earlier this year. While the property was appraised for $3,150,000, the total purchase price of $4,004,000 includes “added value items” from Grit Development, including demolishing two buildings, stabilization work, and fencing, along with other required actions by Grit, a prominent developer and property owner in the city’s downtown core. 

Several members of the city’s preservation and architecture communities spoke out Wednesday to request that the city prioritize restoration of the historic structure, and hire an architect to design a fire station building in line with the city’s legacy of acclaimed architecture. 

The Town & Country Center opened in 1948 and was designed by architects Paul R. Williams and A. Quincy Jones. The center “is one of the best examples of the international-style of architecture in southern California and also is an important ‘mixed-use’ development,” according to the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation. The property is also known for its pedestrian-friendly courtyard. 

“We recognize the need for a new facility and appreciate the city’s commitment to our first responders. At the same time, today’s acquisition affects one of Palm Springs’ most historically and architecturally significant commercial properties, the town and country center,” said Courtney Newman, president of the Palm Springs Modern Committee.

“(Palm Springs Modern Committee) is not opposed to this acquisition nor are we opposed to demolition if it was truly necessary for the fire station. But for a property of this importance, verbal assurances are not enough,” Newman continued, asking for “written, enforceable commitments” to the preservation and restoration of the remaining historic portions of the center, along with a fire station design that doesn’t “overwhelm or diminish” the historic buildings. 

In response to concerns about the fire station’s eventual design, Fagg stressed that so far the city has only done conceptual studies, and “will select an architect and a contractor at a later stage.”

“Many of the public comments that came out this evening on the architecture, the design, the sensitivity to having a specialist involved in the design process, that will all come after we actually start working on the building,” said Councilmember Ron deHarte. “The purchase price and the contract isn’t tied to the height and scale of the firehouse that’s going to be built or having modernist architecture experts involved, so we are committed to that.”

---