HomeMy WebLinkAboutTUP Westfield Shoppingtown Auto Sales Special Event . CITY OF PALM DESERT
COMMUNITY SERVICES DEPARTMENT
b 4. .
INTEROFFICE MEMORANDUM
TO: Carlos Ortega, City Manager
FROM: Phil Drell, Director, Community Development
DATE: October 10, 2001
SUBJECT: Westfield Shoppingtown Request for Auto Sales Special Event
Temporary Use Permit
Under Chapter 25.64 of the Zoning Ordinance, the Director of Community Development
may approve temporary use permits for special sales events totaling ten days in any
calendar year. Conditions are applied to insure that the events will not adversely
impact adjacent properties and that internal circulation, public safety and convenience
are preserved.
Over the summer, Westfield Shoppingtown received approval for two three-day car sale
events in their north parking lot. While there was some misunderstandings concerning
restrictions on signage and balloons, the operator was generally responsive when
problems were brought to his attention.
Under the ordinance, Westfield Shoppingtown is eligible for one more event this year._ _..
Does the Council wish to provide specific directions concerning the approval of then—
,
events?
R ' ed and Ap v
CS-
Phil Drell Richard Folkers
Director, Community Development Assistant City Manager
Development Services
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Attachment
CITY COUNCIL CTION:
APPROVED ✓ DENIED, ,
RECEIVED OTHER
MEETING DATE _ l l`5 I
AYES:-- .�,
NOES: aAl k Avu
ABSENT: Au a)
ABSTAIN:
'TERIFIED BY: 'AT..)
Original on File with Cio, qerk's Office
By Minute Motion, direct that there be no Temporary
Use Permits approved for Westfield Shoppingtown
from the time period of Thanksgiving through Easter
so as not to impede shoppers at the center during
the high season.
........ ...... CITY Of P . ffl DESERT
73-510 FRED WARING DRIVE
,. PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA 9 2 260-2 5 7 8
Ite TEL: 760 346-061 I
'tea °• • FAX: 760 340-0574
cityhall@ci.palm-desert.ca.us
OFFICE OF THE CITY COUNCIL
October 1, 2001
Ms. Norine A. Bowen
General Manager
Ms. Nicole Boggs
Specialty Leasing Representative
Westfield Shoppingtown Palm Desert
72840 Highway 111
Palm Desert, California 92260
Dear Ms. Bowen and Ms. Boggs:
Thank you for your letter of September 26, 2001, regarding the used car show at
Westfield Shoppingtown Palm Desert.
I have asked that this item be placed on the City Council agenda for October 11,
2001, for Council's review and action. You will be notified in writing of any
decision made by City Council on this item. You are welcome to attend the
meeting at 4:00 p.m.
Again, thank you for your correspondence and for being a great community
partner.
Sincerely,
ROBERT A. SPIEGEL
COUNCILMEMBER
RAS:wjm
cc: City Council
Carlos Ortega
Phil Drell
0 ruxnoox.IcrcuoPAPER
•
September 26,2001
i3esti1e[t1
SHOPPINGTOWN
PALM DESERT
72840 Highway 111
Councilman Robert Spiegel Palm Desert,CA 92260
• City of Palm Desert Telephone (760)346-2121
73-510 Fred Waring Drive Facsimile (760)341-7979
Palm Desert,CA 92260-2578
Dear Councilman Spiegel:
By way of this letter,we would like to solicit your assistance in helping us continue our used car show
events.Mr.Phil Drell brought to our attention,that during the first day of the show over the Labor Day
weekend,you had objections to both the balloons and the signage.
While we understand the sensitivity of both of your issues,we,at the same time,need to entertain events
such as these for additional revenue,as well as for our community. In the spirit of cooperation, we are
confident that we can work towards a compromise that will satisfy all parties involved.
With that in mind,we are proposing the following: 1. No balloons of any sort will be utilized going
forward(balloons were taken down immediately,upon mention),2. The signage will be submitted to
Mr.Phil Drell for pre-approval,and,Westfield will incur the cost of the signs.Please note that these signs
will be exclusively for Westfield Shoppingtown Palm Desert. As previously stated these were the only
two objections that were mentioned to us.
Attached please find a recap that we believe you will find very interesting. It highlights the overall event
from a tax revenue standpoint for the City of Palm Desert,as well as provides details as to the overall
monies spent by the operators themselves during the event.
As time is of the essence for us in booking an additional show this November as well as solidifying our
2002 budget by October 5th,we would appreciate your immediate attention to this matter.
For those of you who have not seen our redevelopment efforts thus far,we would be more than happy to
conduct tours for each of you. We have received very positive compliments from both our customers and
retailers as well.
Thank you in advance for your assistance and immediate consideration in this matter. We look forward to
your response as soon as possible.
Very truly yours,
("hcrutAuli. ,696LA-1,—) --YA/Q:4/9A-)
Norine A. Bowen Nicole Boggs
General Manager Specialty Leasing Representative
Enclosure
CC:Mayor James Ferguson
Mayor Pro-Tem Richard Kelly
Councilman Buford Crites
Councilwoman Jean Benson
Mr.Phil Drell ?W t.4 t.1 S.111-11 AT ;3
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L3A1303111
Dear Nicole:
Hi and thank you for letting us present our used-car tent sale at your mall. It was
an absolute pleasure working with you and your staff. As usual, you did an
excellent job.
We are very pleased with our relationship with Palm Dessert. That was the
second sale that we had there and are looking forward to having many more. Our
staff, as well as all of our dealers, are always very excited to come to your
community. Not only do we find it a beautiful place to spend the weekend, but the
people have also proven themselves to become more than just customers and
vendors, but to become our friends as well. We very much hope this relationship
continues.
With that said, I want to bring up a couple of points. First of all, because of the
success of our shows in the area, we now are having local and surrounding
dealers coming to us to participate. Actually during our last show there, I had a
manager from one of the local shows come down and sit with me on three of the
four days we were out there. He was very impressed with our operation and
wants to be a part of future shows. In the very competitive auto industry, that
speaks loads.
As I mentioned above, we truly love your community and want to become a part
of it. I'm currently working on a project that will generate money towards the Palm
Dessert high school.
With my extensive background in sports entertainment, I'm proposing putting on
a wrestling show and donating the funds to a scholarship program to try and help
local athletes who may not be fortunate enough to fully handle the financial
burden of continuing his or her education. I would like to do one of these shows
every time we come in. I want to make this work on an on-going basis.
We realize that there are a number of different promotion companies in our
business and you have the option of working with any of them, but I think you
would be hard pressed to find one that sincerely wants to make an effort to do
more than just business with the community. But this is what we are about.
Hopefully we will have a chance to prove this in the future.
I understand that you are meeting with your city counsel. I hope all goes well and
would welcome any calls from members with regards to our intentions.
Again, thank you very much for your time and effort. It has been a real pleasure
doing business with both yourself and your company.
Yours truly,
Dan Turner
Economic Impact of an Auto Tent Sale:
Congratulations for wanting to host a Provantage used-car tent sale at your
venue or in your city. We are sure you will be very happy with the results. Our
tent sales have been proven to be a very effective way to inject a large boost of
real dollars into a community not only the days of the event, but for many more to
follow as well.
Taking a recent sale where we did approximately $3 million in sales, the city
received their one percent as a tax on that which equaled $30,000 from the
weekend event. But even though that is a nice influx of capital from a weekend,
we are much more than that.
So how does a show impact a community? There are a number of ways. They
are broken down as such (we'll look at a show with six dealers):
1. Each dealer has a managerial staff of eight people and two porters.
Add to that approximately 35 sales people and this will equal 45 people
per dealer. Take six of those and that adds up to 270 people from the
dealers alone. On top of this come approximately another 60 people
from Provantage staff to truck drivers and laborers. The final number
adds up to well over 300 working people on a weekend. It comes in at
close to 330.
If each person spends only $5 per day in the mall that comes out to
approximately $7,000 of extra income for the mall including our set-up
and teardown days. Let's not forget that there are taxes to be taken out
of this that goes directly to the city.
2. Meals: If the average lunch costs $7 and the average dinner $12, then
the area restaurants are looking to gain $8,930 on lunches from
Thursday until Monday. Dinners will come in at $14,880. This totals up
to $23,810. Throw in another $5,000 on breakfasts and it comes out to
$28,810 on food.
3. Hotels: With the average price of a hotel to be at $65 including taxes,
the hotels will break down to about 100 rooms for management and
115 rooms for sales staff. That equals $41,925. Because of the rates
during tourist season in the desert you can safely double that rate to
equal about $84,000 for the weekend. Again, a portion of this goes in
city taxes.
4. Sales: If you take an average sale of 150 autos at an average price of
$20,000 after taxes, the total comes to a staggering $3,000,000 in
business.
5. The Mall: Finally let's not forget that we pay the mall itself$15,000 per
rental. If we do four shows per year that comes out to $60,000.
6. Customer Draw: In the past we have been told by venues that having
us on their property has drawn an increase of potential customers by
$30 percent. These would be people who have come to the show and
then decided to visit the hosting site's properties.
7. Ongoing Community Effect: Customers are purchasing autos. These
autos in the future will need to be maintained. This will mean things
such as oil changes, brake inspections etc. This will be money that will
stay in the local community. It will also allow some of these customers
to continue to buy automobiles down the road from the local dealers as
they will have established credit with the banks which some will not
already have.
As you can see, Provantage coming into a neighborhood is a very good
situation for all involved from a number of different standpoints. This is
certainly not a one-way street. Your community and city stands to gain in
numerous ways.
We value our relationships with the cities and towns that invite us into their
communities. We treat them with respect and strive to make everybody
happy. We look forward to working with you in the future.