Developers discussing a project inside city limits that would include a 123,000-square-foot distribution center are promising to be mindful of an odd local landmark.
Driving the news: No formal application has been submitted. However, plans on file at City Hall show a 40-acre parcel near North Indian Canyon Drive and Garnet Avenue could one day contain the distribution center, a travel stop, and two other parcels suitable for building.
- The travel stop would be similar to the nearby Pilot facility and include a store, fuel station, and truck repair facilities, according to the rough site plan.
Of interest: The property is adjacent to an existing Jack in the Box restaurant and houses one very unique feature – a 28-foot-tall spider sculpture containing the body of a Volkswagen Beetle.
Wait, what? The sculpture is the creation of artist Robert Miner. He operated the Hole in the Wall welding shop on the property from the 1970s through the 1990s.
- According to the Roadside Wonderland website curators, the business closed after Miner passed away in 2008, but the nightmare-inducing tarantula lives on.
What they’re saying: “It will provide hundreds of jobs and reinvigorate the existing blighted property,” architect James Cioffi wrote in a justification letter filed Aug. 29. “The project will also incorporate the iconic Hole in the Wall ‘spider’ sculpture.
Next steps: City planners quickly note that the project is only in the preliminary stages and the plans are merely conceptual. It could be months before the first shovel goes in the ground and requires intense review by planners and elected and appointed officials.
- Distribution centers have recently been a hot topic throughout the Inland Empire. There are several in the planning stages across Interstate 10 on land in both Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs city limits.
