On its first Thanksgiving weekend, in 1990, Desert Hills Factory Stores in Cabazon, California, ran out of parking. Cars spilled onto dirt lots, and the line to get in reached back to the freeway.
Tour buses were arriving by 1993, several a week, and a Donna Karan blazer tagged at $415 sold for $250.
The pink-stucco outlet stop kept growing. Designer labels moved in, and in 2014 a 50-store wing opened. That Thanksgiving the center opened at 10 a.m.
In 2026 Saks Global's bankruptcy reached Cabazon. Saks OFF 5TH and Last Call, the two off-price department stores among the designer boutiques, held closing sales, and by April both had gone dark.
Desert Hills Factory Stores opens off I-10
On Thanksgiving weekend in 1990, Desert Hills Factory Stores ran out of parking.
The paved spaces filled, drivers turned onto dirt overflow lots, and the cars waiting to get in backed up onto the freeway approach.
At Guess and at Esprit, shoppers stood in line outside the doors.
The center had opened that year in Cabazon, California, an unincorporated Riverside County community on Interstate 10, the main road between Los Angeles and Palm Springs.
Ginsburg Craig Associates built it for about $14 million: 55 stores in more than 200,000 square feet, finished in pink stucco, with no enclosed corridor and every shop opening onto outdoor walkways.
The site put manufacturers' own clearance stores on a busy tourist route while keeping them away from the department-store districts, where those manufacturers were wary of opening outlets.
The doors opened at 9 a.m. and closed at 8 p.m., seven days a week, and most stores took checks as well as major credit cards.
Within its first year, all 55 spaces were leased.
Tour buses and markdowns, then a doubled center
By 1993 Cabazon was receiving several coach groups a week, often 45 people or more at a time.
They unloaded at stores run by the manufacturers themselves, selling clearance stock, irregulars, and last season's lines.
Harry & David sold food with cosmetic flaws or plain packaging at a reduced price.
The cuts were uneven, and at some stores the savings were much thinner.
The developers' business changed the same year.
Ginsburg Craig combined its outlet operations with The Chelsea Group in 1993, in the company that became Chelsea Property Group, and Chelsea owned Desert Hills outright.
In 1995, under Chelsea, an expansion of about 190,000 square feet added 50 stores to the 52 already trading, with Burberrys, Crabtree & Evelyn, and Bose among the arrivals.
Designer labels move in on both sides of the road
Designer labels multiplied in the second half of the 1990s.
Giorgio Armani and Ralph Lauren opened outlets in 1996, the year Ontario Mills was getting ready to open farther west on Interstate 10, and by that December the center was doing business as Desert Hills Premium Outlets, the name Chelsea used across its outlet chain.
Eight stores, Emanuel Ungaro and Lacoste among them, opened in November 1997, and eight more in December 2002, including Hugo Boss.
By then the biggest names were designer ones, Gucci, Versace, Christian Dior, and Zegna among them.
As the center grew, its stores ended up in two sections, east and west, and by 2000 an internal roadway ran between them.
At the end of 2002 the center held 133 stores, against the 52 trading before the 1995 work.
In October 2004 Simon Property Group bought Chelsea, and Desert Hills went with it.
A garage first, then 50 more stores
In 2012 Simon began a $100 million expansion at Desert Hills.
Its new stores were planned for ground that held surface parking, so the work opened with a four-level garage behind the Polo Ralph Lauren store.
The center the garage would serve had about 130 stores and drew visitors from well beyond Cabazon.
International shopping had become part of the center's routine.
The public-address system welcomed visitors in several languages, while Morongo kept a kiosk at the outlets and moved guests back and forth each day.
Tour groups came in coaches and smaller vans.
Prada, Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5TH, and Last Call by Neiman Marcus counted among the big tenants.
Food came from quick-service counters such as Panda Express, China Max, and Häagen-Dazs, and the center had grown without a large sit-down restaurant.
The new wing opened on April 24, 2014, with 50 stores in about 146,000 square feet, wider walks, more planting, and the stucco and tile roofs of the older buildings.
Alexander McQueen, Helmut Lang, and Belstaff opened their first U.S. outlet stores there, next to Valentino and Fendi, and the center reached about 180 stores.
At midnight on Black Friday that year, it was still open.
The East Village opens, and the center closes
A smaller addition came to the east side in November 2018: about 5,000 square feet built around a central fireplace, with shade structures, seating, and digital directories.
Eton, John Hardy, and PAIGE opened in it, PAIGE in its first U.S. outlet store, and Sbarro joined the food court in May 2019.
On March 19, 2020, Simon closed Desert Hills when it shut its malls and outlet centers across the country in the first wave of COVID-19.
The shutdown was announced to last through March 29.
Under California's restrictions the center stayed closed until May 26, 2020, when it reopened at 11 a.m. The reopening kept crowds down and people apart: play areas and stroller service stayed shut, seating and restrooms were spaced out, and signs and floor markers managed foot traffic.
Saks OFF 5TH closes, and an expansion is approved
Desert Hills ended 2025 fully leased.
In January 2026 Saks Global, the company behind Saks OFF 5TH and Neiman Marcus Last Call, filed for Chapter 11, and at the end of that month it announced it would close most OFF 5TH stores and every remaining Last Call.
Both Cabazon stores were on the list.
The OFF 5TH, about 26,000 square feet, began its closing sale that month, and the Last Call was one of the final five stores of a banner Saks Global was ending.
By April 2026 both were closed. The designer boutiques stayed.
Simon Property Group owns all of Desert Hills, an open-air outlet center laid out as an East Village and a West Village, and its stores include Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, and Gucci.
In the West Village, Birba runs a full-service restaurant, indoors and out.
In August 2026 the Riverside County Planning Commission approved a plan to join the two halves.
The main entrance and its traffic signal would move to Seminole Drive at Malki Road, and a new lot would add 283 parking spaces.
The project allows as many as 15 new buildings totaling about 47,900 square feet.
Two would bridge east and west, and the internal driveway separating them would disappear.
In 1993 a busload of shoppers could find a Donna Karan blazer cut from $415 to $250.
The buses still come, routed off Seminole Drive around the back of the building, and the stores they stop for now include Prada.
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