Developer wants to build replica moon resort in the Coachella Desert

The 10-acre project comes with a $4 billion price tag

By Bianca Barragan Updated Apr 23, 2018, 10:29am PDT

A rendering of the giant lunar sphere planned for this moon-themed resort.

A company with plan to build a resort that replicates conditions on the moon, but in Coachella, is seeking a wealthy developer to make it happen.

According to the Desert Sun, the Canadian company Moon World Resorts is hoping for a firm to come along and foot the $4 billion bill to build and operate the hotel. So far, "the company has little money of its own for the project, nor have developers publicly lined up eager to spend," says the Desert Sun.

The lack of funding for the project isn't the moon resort's only obstacle. The director of the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship tells the Sun that "the 14-year period between the idea's inception and the Coachella announcement could be reason to think that the project would not come to fruition."

According to the Desert Sun, the moon-themed hotel was originally imagined for a Las Vegas-adjacent area in 2002. Moon World Resorts has been working with Coachella's economic development manager over the course of four years just to try and find the right place for the massive destination.

A hotel suite rendering. — A hotel suite.

According to a February release announcing the company's decision to try to bring the enormous resort complex to Coachella, the moon-themed resort would include a 10-acre replica of the lunar surface, "incorporating an operational, fully functional and totally realistic lunar colony set within the world's largest and tallest sphere (750 feet / 229 meters)."

A rendering of the artificial lunar surface at the moon resort. — The "lunar surface."

It would also count a 4,000-room, five-star hotel; a 10,000-seat event center; a convention center; a science and technology campus offering "advanced degrees;" and a "seductive beach club" among its many amenities.

Coachella's shaping up to be quite the theme park capital—the Orlando of the West!—as it could also be getting an Aztec-focused theme park; developers turned their conceptual plans into the city's planning department last year. Meanwhile, in the desert between LA and Las Vegas, someone is trying to build what now seems like a totally reasonable UFO-shaped hotel.