From a distance, the sand north of Interstate 10 in Coachella looks mostly untouched, its foothills marred only by utility lines and a few dusty roads.

But south of the freeway, fast-growing Coachella sees the expanse, bounded on its west side by the San Andreas Fault and continuing east toward Joshua Tree National Park, as the potential site for future development. Today a city of more than 43,000 people, Coachella has predicted its population will explode to 155,000 people by 2035, rivaling the size of cities in western Riverside County.

One real estate developer is betting the newcomers will need a place to go.

KPC Development Company LLC in October closed the latest of three large land deals in Coachella in the region east of Dillon Road and north of the freeway. Altogether, the firm has purchased about four square miles of land in the area, sometimes called Desert Lakes, for $14 million, according to real estate title records.

KPC Development is the real estate development arm of Riverside-based KPC Group. The company also invests in healthcare and education. In a written statement, KPC Group spokesperson Jeff Corless confirmed the company has acquired “several thousand acres in the Coachella Valley” but said it “has not made any specific determinations for the use of this land.”

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On its website, KPC Group has posted preliminary drawings showing a possible development in the land north of Interstate 10. The sketch includes 6,500 homes, a casino-hotel complex, festival grounds and medical facilities.

Maps and renderings posted on the KPC website depict the desert property, bounded on its west side by the All-American Canal, developed into a collection of neighborhoods, some of them separated by green bands of date palm plantations. A thin blue river shown in the drawings divides the property into two parts, with a festival ground and a park on the north bank of the river and a commercial development with a hotel, casino and amphitheater complex, medical center and anti-aging institute, a nine-hole golf course and additional mixed-use space on its south side, closer to Interstate 10.

In an email, Coachella Development Services Director Luis Lopez said KPC Development has not made any formal proposals to the city. He said the city is discussing a potential reimbursement agreement with the developers, which would allow the city to hire consultants “to coordinate project meetings and begin reviewing preliminary land use plans” in the Desert Lakes area.

In its General Plan, Coachella has designated Desert Lakes as a place where developers could build resorts, neighborhoods and retail space. The plan, released in 2015, did not anticipate the area would see development before 2035. Planners described the region as a sensitive environment, with desert washes, active faults and 100-year floodplains.

A new highway interchange could help the project to overcome limited access, one potential roadblock to development. According to the Department of Transportation, construction on a proposed interchange between Interstate 10 and Avenue 50 – to be built 9.1 miles west of the Cactus City rest area near the southern border of KPC’s property – is scheduled to begin in 2019. The interchange would open in 2020.

Lopez confirmed that the future interchange could feed the Desert Lakes area as well as La Entrada, a community of 7,800 homes pegged for the 2,200 acres on the south side of Interstate-10.

KPC was founded by Dr. Kali P. Chaudhuri, an orthopedic surgeon turned entrepreneur. The KPC Group of Companies has pursued investments in Riverside County and beyond. It owns hospitals in Hemet, Menifee and other Southern California communities. It has also established a medical school in India.

The KPC property in Coachella is one of several large land deals to close in the Coachella Valley since 2017. Financial giant BlackRock purchased 167 acres in the neighborhood west of the Palm Desert campuses of California State University San Bernardino and the University of California Riverside in August 2017. Then, in January 2018, the family trust of a man thought to be one of the largest property owners in the country bought 1,100 acres in north Indio, once pegged for a master-planned development. And in March, developers snagged a square mile of land near the Annenberg Estate in Rancho Mirage.