This week, the application to develop that parking lots at the base of Park City Mountain Resort was filed with the Park City Planning Department. The plans have been in the works for more than two decades…
In April of last year, Vail Resorts announced it had entered into an agreement to sell the parking lot property to the Provo-based commercial real estate investment group, PEG Companies. PEG has developed plans for the four parcels currently being used as surface parking lots at the base of the resort. An original Master Planned Development and Development Agreement was approved for the property by Park City in the 1990s. Robert Schmidt is the Chief Development Officer for PEG Companies.
“Really this signifies for us a kickoff of a much broader community discussion and getting feedback from the community and from the city – so we’re looking forward to that,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt says they spent the last 10 months on community outreach and held several meetings with those most closely related to the resort: neighbors, homeowner associations and other businesses that will be directly impacted by the project.
“You know, we hosted those meetings with the intent to give folks an opportunity to see what we were proposing, give us some feedback early on, allow us to address some of those concerns,” Schmidt explained. “Nobody signed any non-disclosure agreements. We did ask that they not share any site plans or information…but other than that, very productive meetings. We were very pleased with the feedback that we received.”
The three parking lots – the upper one, the First Time lot and the lot on the north side of the Shadow Ridge and Silver King hotels have been divided into 4 parcels. Schmidt believes the application meets the intent of the approved master plan.
“We’ve got an existing development agreement that provides for an amount of density units and an amount of square footage,” he said. “We are between 15 and 20% under what’s allowed in the development agreement. Additionally, there is height that is described in the development agreement master plan – we’re meeting those standards. We’re meeting the standards of open space. We’re meeting the standards of parking, and so while we certainly expect a lot of discussion around all of that, we feel like we submitted an application that is harmonious with the community, with the environment – less that what’s allowed in the development agreement and hoping that’s a positive thing for everyone involved.”
The open space required by the MPD has already been set aside on the mountain.
About 150 condos will be available for sale. They are located throughout the project – some on the upper lot as well as the two lower lots. At the base of the ski hill, near the First Time chairlift a 4-star hotel will be built.
70,000 square feet of affordable and employee housing will be built in the upper lot.
“What we’ve done is we’ve provided a significant amount of affordable housing,” he said. “It’s in compliance with the city guidelines and we have it’s all in the first phase of the project. So, it will be on the upper lot - what we call Parcel B - but it’s the upper lot on the south side of the property. And it will be all inclusive in phase 1 so we’re going to do all of the affordable housing up front.
Some of the affordable housing will be for sale.
The retail, restaurants and skier services will be part of phases 2 and 3 will be located in the First Time lot.
“We have a very nice plaza designed. It continues all the way to down to the intersection of Empire and Silver King, the plaza does. And then fronting the plaza is retail and we’ll say skier services, restaurants, types of things that are important to a ski resort.”
The surface skier parking will be replaced with paid parking in structures both above and below ground. He says they’re also contemplating an improvement to the transit hub. The bus drop-off area has a different property owner, so others will need be involved in those discussions.
Public ski lockers located in both the upper and lower parking lots will be built for daily and seasonal use.
“That was absolutely one of the biggest thing we heard was we need lockers, so we took that back and incorporated specifically into our plans to provide that. It’s funny, we heard stories of people that would park their cars there to use them as their day ski locker while they transited back and forth shuttling kids and skier and so we that loud and clear,”
Vehicle circulation will also change – with one way roads going counterclockwise and a couple of roundabouts are envisioned.
The public will get to look at the plans at some upcoming open houses – the dates and times have not been scheduled… These open houses will be held prior to the planning commission meetings.
The project’s timeline depends on the length of the Planning Commission review. Schmidt said PEG won’t close on the acquisition until after a Planning Commission decision. Planning Director Bruce Erickson tells KPCW that he has not accepted the application as compete, yet.
