About 40 people who provide services to tourists, attended a tourism and marketing update hosted by the city of Twentynine Palms Thursday morning. City Manager Frank Luckino opened the session with a snapshot of the Project Phoenix plans for the downtown area saying, “We want to drive people to the downtown area and we want local business to be part of it.” Luckino described the project as a multipurpose facility consisting of two buildings combined at 35,000 square feet with meeting rooms, a commercial kitchen, classrooms, and a new location for the County Library. Infrastructure will include under-grounding utilities from Adobe Road to Donnell Hill, public parking lots, curbs, gutters, and sidewalks, and a package sewer plant to serve the entire downtown area. The area would eventually include an MBTA transportation hub and low-income senior housing.
Joshua Tree National Park Representative George Land gave an overview of the record attendance at the already-over capacity park and efforts to divert visitors to the Twentynine Palms and Cottonwood entrances. Land said as the park is now more year-round than seasonal, park visitation is expected to rise from the 2.5 million in 2016 to 3 million.
Mark Goodale of the MBTA explained the new park shuttle system set to go into operation in fall of this year, also designed reduce visitor impact.
Presentations outlining efforts to market Twentynine Palms to potential visitors were given by the Tortoise Rock Casino, Coachella Valley Economic Partnership, the City of Twentynine Palms, the Twentynine Palms Chamber of Commerce, and the Joshua Tree Gateway Communities Organization.
CITY OF TWENTYNINE PALMS HOSTS TOURIST MARKETING EVENT
