Palm Springs City Council moves condo project forward 

The Palm Springs City Council approved a General Plan amendment on Wednesday night that will allow a 16-unit condominium project to move forward on the northwest corner of North Sunrise Way and East Amado Road. 

The project, proposed by George Yousef of GMS of the Desert, Inc., is located on a 1.34-acre parcel in the city’s Section 14 Specific Plan area. The site is currently a parking lot that was previously used by employees of a telephone switching building located just south of the project site, but the lot was “abandoned many years earlier when automated switchgear was installed,” according to a city staff report. 

The area along the west side of North Sunrise Way from Ramon to Alejo long had a General Plan designation of medium density residential, but a partial update of the Palm Springs General Plan in January 2025 envisioned the area for neighborhood commercial uses. 

In reality, commercial proposals haven’t picked up in the area, and instead recent development in the area has centered on multifamily residential. The city council approved a General Plan Amendment changing the site from a Neighborhood Community Commercial designation back to medium-density residential to allow the 16-unit condo project to proceed, and to realign the site’s General Plan designation with conditions on the ground. 

The Planning Commission approved a development permit for the project in September, followed by an approval from the Architectural Review Committee in October. The General Plan Amendment was the last step the project needed to receive entitlements. 

A separate multi-family development is also underway nearby at the southwest corner of Alejo Road and Sunrise Way, “further reinforcing the multi-family residential character of this segment of North Sunrise Way,” according to the staff report. 

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