What should they do with the Indio Fashion Mall?

The Desert Sun offers up a nice article on the history of the Indio Fashion Mall today and its outlook for the future. Spoiler: it’s not very bright.

Yet the mall sits on the corner of Monroe Street and Highway 111 in what could be a prime commercial corridor. Redeveloping the mall property is a “top priority” for the city of Indio, second only to revitalizing the city’s downtown, according to city economic development director Carl Morgan.

Two developers have inquired recently, Morgan said. They expressed interest in buying a city-owned 20-acre property behind the mall, which a broker recently estimated was worth $2.6 million, as well as the mall. But the mall’s owners want $14.7 million for their 19.5-acre property — even though Morgan thinks any buyer would just tear it down.

And this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.  There were claims that the mall would have a “rebirth” in 2014, but that never seemed to happen and recent Yelp reviews include:

“It’s the saddest place in to go to, in Indio”. 

“This mall was so creepy! Do not take your family.”

“Wow everything is closed, lousy and cheap.. And inside is dirty and need clean up. I guess there time to shut down..”

So yeah, not good.

Thanks to Amazon, malls are dying all across America – which means not only that kids born today are going to have a real rough time understanding just what in the hell Mallrats is all about, but also that, like pretty much every other mall, the outlook for the Indio Fashion Mall as we know it is bleak.

The Palm Springs Mall, or what’s left of it, looks primed to be a west valley Campus of College of the Desert.  But, with an Indio campus already in place, there really doesn’t seem to be any reason to keep the Indio Fashion Mall around.  Well, unless you can think of something….

Let’s discuss in the comments.