Vegas builder abandons high-end resort plan near California national park

Plans for a high-end outdoor hotel at the edge of Joshua Tree National Park are being scuttled after years of local debate and one very contentious lawsuit. Ofland Twentynine Palms, an eco-style resort property set on more than 150 California High Desert acres in the city of Twentynine Palms, will not move forward after all, the property's developers said in an email to SFGATE.

"After careful evaluation, Ofland Hotels has made the strategic decision to halt the project in response to the softening market demand," the email reads.

Ofland Twentynine Palms was originally envisioned as an outdoor-focused adult playground of sorts, featuring 100 variously sized cabins set within the desert landscape, as well as a pool, a public restaurant and other amenities. The project's Las Vegas-based owners, Ofland Hotels, already operate a similar project called Ofland Escalante in Utah, between Zion National Park and Capitol Reef National Park.

The proposed hotel site sat in the Indian Cove neighborhood of Twentynine Palms, a standalone desert city northeast of Palm Springs that acts as a gateway town to Joshua Tree National Park. Its location, in a residential area nearly touching the northern boundary of the park, sparked fierce debate among motivated locals, many of whom banded together to form the Say No to Ofland Resort group. That group, in coordination with the Center for Biological Diversity and others, put near-constant pressure on local officials who had approved the project, in part by allowing a zoning change for the property from residential to commercial/tourist use. Contentious community meetings lasted for hours and occasionally devolved into shouting, and the project's status was constantly chronicled in local publications like the Desert Trumpet.

In August 2025, the neighborhood group and Center for Biological Diversity sued the city of Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County Superior Court over the Ofland project, arguing that the proposed hotel could lead to environmental issues for endangered species like desert tortoises. The lawsuit alleged, in part, that the glamping-style resort had been given approval without conducting a full environmental impact report.

Now, the project is dead in the sand, with the developers behind the hotel abandoning the parcel and leaving town. Ofland officials insist in their statement that while they are no longer pursuing the resort, the decision stemmed from market uncertainty and not from any lawsuit or local pushback.

"As a company, we must adapt to shifts in the industry," Luke Searcy, head of development for Ofland Hotels, said in the statement. "Ultimately, current market conditions did not justify the level of investment required to responsibly move the project forward."

Travis Poston, a local and longtime opponent of Ofland Twentynine Palms, said that he was "relieved" to hear the project would not be moving forward in his Indian Cove neighborhood. "We fought really hard for our voices to be heard," Poston told SFGATE when reached by phone, "and ultimately it felt like our voices were only heard through legal means."

The Desert Trumpet reported that the city will now have to move to return the land to its original residential zoning before the end of July, and remove any entitlements previously granted to the project. Poston is hopeful that, in the end, the close-knit community can heal from the years of debate and contention, and move forward together now that the project's fate has been settled.

"That's one of the unfortunate side effects," he said. "It divided the community."

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