| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The 300-acre proposed Miralon development.
Courtesy of Freehold Communities
Palm Springs has already embraced the tiny home trend; now it’s putting its own spin on the push to produce eco-friendly housing by welcoming a 300-acre sustainable community called Miralon.
Miralon will feature 1,150 “Modernist-inspired” residences—for-sale single-family homes, plus townhouses and condos—with solar panels as a standard feature for all units. The development will have a central amenity area with a clubhouse, pools, a lounge, and a gym.
The residences will be built in phases. It’s expected that smaller units will start around the high $300,000s to low $400,000s, and go up to the mid-$700,000s for the largest houses, Freehold California Division President Brad Shuckhart tells Curbed.
The project was originally proposed before the recession by another developer, SunCal. At that time, the development included a golf course, which was built, but never opened, says the Desert Sun. The project stalled, as many others did, when the economy took a nosedive. But it was later revived by a new developer, Freehold Communities.
As part of the new Miralon project, Freehold is converting the existing 18-hole golf course on the property into olive groves, communal outdoor space, and about 6.5 miles of walking paths for Miralon residents.
The olive groves will be harvested by the Temecula Olive Oil Company,and olive oil will be pressed on-site, says a news release from Freehold. The yields of community gardens within the development “will go directly to the tables of residents.”
“Evolving the existing golf course into habitat-sensitive, agricultural open space is a response to the precious resources of the Coachella Valley including its need for water,” says Shuckhart.
Both a golf course and olive groves give buyers what they want: open space.
The Desert Sun spoke with experts and planners who said that the reason golf course-adjacent living is so attractive to people buying in the Palm Springs area is not necessarily the allure of the game but the idea of living next to “protected open space.” The olive groves and walking paths that will replace the golf course will offer the same benefit, but without the costly upkeep.
Miralon’s central clubhouse will be designed by Robert Hidey Architects, the same firm that is writing the design guidelines for the new development. C2 Collaborative Landscape Architecture is transforming the golf course for its new agricultural uses.