La Quinta Turned Down a Wave Pool at Trilogy's Corner. A Golf Club Is Going In, and the Surf Moved to Thermal.
October 29, 2026
October 29, 2026
In 2018, Trilogy homeowners filled the La Quinta City Council chamber more than once over a road. Their side of Avenue 60 had been finished for years, with landscaping, two travel lanes, a wide bike lane, curb, sidewalk and a dirt path. The north side had one lane, a narrow bike path and a sand embankment that blew onto the pavement. The Desert Sun reported in April 2019 that residents gathered more than 500 signatures. They had found a 2004 agreement requiring Andalusia's developers to finish Avenue 60 from Madison to Monroe, and that agreement set no deadline.
That story explains how this corner of La Quinta tends to work. The land around Trilogy gets built on the developer's schedule, and road improvements arrive in phases tied to construction. Now the last big vacant piece nearby, west of Madison Street and north of Avenue 60, is moving. It will hold a golf club. The surf park that made it famous will be somewhere else entirely.
The original proposal, Coral Mountain Resort, put a 16.62-acre surf basin, 600 homes and a 150-room hotel on roughly 386 acres. On September 21, 2022, the City Council denied it, and according to a January 2024 city compliance memo, the environmental report was never certified. The Coachella Valley Independent reported that opponents raised traffic, lighting, noise and water use, including an estimate of 18 million gallons just to fill the basin.
After the denial, the applicant redrew the project to fit within the entitlements Andalusia already had. That same memo describes the revised plan as golf, homes and commercial use, and it expressly excludes the wave basin and the resort area.
| 2022 proposal (denied) | 2024 plan (approved) | |
|---|---|---|
| Centerpiece | 16.62-acre surf basin | 18-hole golf course |
| Homes | 600 | Up to 750 |
| Hotel | 150 rooms | None |
| Commercial | Resort uses | Up to 60,000 sq ft at Madison and Avenue 58 |
The 750-home cap doesn't add density. According to the City of La Quinta's project page, the amendment keeps the same number of residential units the specific plan already allowed and cuts the permitted commercial space by about 20,000 square feet. It also moves the architecture on the west side to a more contemporary style, while the east side keeps the Spanish look already built there.
The city lists CM Wave Development, LLC as the applicant, and Meriwether Companies is the developer behind the club, which is called Coral Mountain Desert Club. In a January 13, 2026 release, Meriwether announced that members would get access to a 48-chamber surf lagoon at Thermal Beach Club, which it described as "less than 10 minutes away."
Thermal Beach Club isn't a new project. It sits on Kohl Ranch near Avenue 66, west of Polk Street, in unincorporated Riverside County. The Desert Sun reported that county supervisors approved its zoning on October 27, 2020. County proceedings from that meeting show a lagoon of about 21 acres and 326 dwelling units. La Quinta's denial applied to land inside La Quinta. The lagoon now attached to the club sits on county land whose zoning and planning approvals were already in place, outside the city that said no. Building permits are still required before construction there.
WavePoolMag noted that nothing about Thermal Beach Club's design, approvals or opening date changed with the announcement. The news was the access deal itself. The publication also pointed out that a 2023 description called for 60 wave-generating caissons, compared with 48 chambers now, and said any downsizing was speculation. Meriwether calls it the largest pneumatic wave basin in the U.S.
That leaves the corner of Madison and Avenue 60 with the plan the city approved: a golf course, homes and a club, without the 18-million-gallon basin that drove the 2022 opposition.
Meriwether's April 9, 2026 groundbreaking announcement lays out the plan:
The developer calls it the area's first large-scale private club to open in more than 20 years, a claim from its own announcement.
The approved map is more specific. Tentative Tract Map 2025-0001 divides about 390 acres west of Madison into 204 single-family lots, three future condominium lots totaling 29.1 acres, golf course lots, and a 6.8-acre commercial site. A sales center is planned on Madison south of the commercial parcel, with an office and showroom and no model homes proposed for now. The club's website still describes the sales office as "opening soon," lists custom homesites, estate homesites and Club Cottages, says membership is by invitation, and publishes no prices.
Here is the record so far, in order:
The off-site lagoon has its own schedule. As reported by The Desert Sun and summarized by WavePoolMag, Thermal Beach Club aims to start construction in summer 2027 and open in the fourth quarter of 2028. As of late October 2026, that start date is still more than half a year away.
The city's May 22, 2025 supplemental traffic assessment shows the details that matter most for daily driving around Trilogy. Full access for residents and golf traffic will be on Madison Street. Avenue 60 gets a residents-only entrance. The commercial corner takes access from Avenue 58 and Madison.
The required road work follows the same pattern as the 2004 Andalusia agreement, with each improvement tied to its frontage:
The traffic signal has its own trigger. The assessment says the main entrance on Madison can work with stop signs on the cross street when it opens. It recommends adding a signal once on-site development passes 204 dwelling units. That threshold equals the number of single-family lots on the approved tract map. Read together, the documents suggest the signal comes as the condominium parcels start adding homes, which could be years after the first houses go up.
At Madison and Avenue 58, the assessment models the opening year with the project and signalized improvements at level of service C in both the morning and evening peaks. For 2040 buildout it shows D in the morning and E in the evening with standard improvements, and D for both peaks with a modified set of improvements.
For anyone weighing a Trilogy home, the corner west across Madison from Avenue 60 is now defined by approved plans: a Kidd golf course, an initial 91 homes, a gate on Avenue 60 for that community's residents, and frontage road work that comes in as each section is built. The amenity with the most public attention is planned for county land in Thermal, on its own 2028 schedule. In the near term, the changes are construction traffic and staged road work along Madison and Avenue 60.
Will there be a wave pool at Madison and Avenue 60? No. The 2024 approved plan expressly excludes an on-site wave basin. Club members will use the lagoon at Thermal Beach Club.
Can the public use the new course or the lagoon? The developer describes both as private amenities, with club membership by invitation.
Are there named tenants for the commercial corner? None have been announced. The approved plan allows up to 60,000 square feet on a 6.8-acre site at the northeast corner of Madison and Avenue 58.
If you're comparing Trilogy with other communities in southeast La Quinta and want to know how the construction schedule at Madison and Avenue 60 fits your own timeline, I'm happy to go through the city documents with you, one approval at a time. Donna Ambrose · Let's Connect.
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