Improvements are underway at Prospector Square. They’re just phase one of an improvement plan for the 40 year old neighborhood.
While the city and UDOT work to install new sidewalks on the north side of Prospector, Executive Director of Prospector Square Craig Dennis says the association is also working on improvements.
“Our project that we’ve been working on is lot H and lot D. We’ve already done one, we’re going to be repaving the other parking lot probably around Labor Day.” Dennis continued, “We’ve got new sidewalks and we’re finishing sewer work right now and putting new sewer lines in. Our part of the project is $1.1 million that we’re investing this year.”
Prospector Square board president Marlene O’Hara says making the improvements is a balancing act.
“We’re trying to figure out how to do things within a reasonable budget and also make the place look better. Improve a 30 plus year-old irrigation system, add lighting to the parking lots.” O’Hara said, “Our landscaping, a lot of it is overgrown and not zero-scrapped at all. We’ve really got our hands full.”
Dennis says that they have had one unexpected cost during improvements.
“We’ve had one surprise in cost.” Dennis explained, “Our sewer line cost have gone higher than we expected because some of the soils in that district is pretty bad. So, we had to take some of the soils down to the Tooele area and that increased some of the costs.”
O’Hara says that you might not be able to see a lot of the improvements once they’re finished.
“We have a private sewer system. We’re probably the only place in the city that has a private sewer system and if it’s upgraded Snyderville Basin (Water Reclamation District) will take it over. That turns out to be a very major project so we’re chipping away at it starting with parking lot H.” O’Hara continued, “The visual impacts of improvements would be probably the greatest in the common area in the middle. I think that’s probably going to be the focus of our next phase.”
The association is appointing two committees to discuss a way to fund the rest of the $6 million plan. For phase one Prospector Square used a two-year assessment to pay for the $1.1 million-dollar improvements. Members of the association have been paying Prospector Square quarterly, the last payment is due in January. Dennis says that Prospector is considering a few options to fund the rest of the project.
“Special two-year assessment will be one of the options, going to a bank for a loan would be an option.” Dennis said, “We’re going to look at all of those. Now that we’ve got some work done it’ll be easier to go look at some other options.”
One potential idea is to give the common area to Park City Municipal.
“There is a law against spending public money on private property. So, we have a big problem because our property is private. One of the things we have suggested to the city is that they take over our common area.” O’Hara explained, “That way they can improve it. That is something that the city is looking into, but we don’t expect that to happen fast because of all the other expensive projects the city has just recently taken on.”
