Historic Park City Alliance Executive Director Alison Kuhlow is leaving at the end of June, and she says the organization’s board is close to naming her replacement around the beginning of May.
The new head of the group is set to begin their work on June 1, but Kuhlow said they will begin attending some committee meetings in May to get up to speed on the issues at hand.
The incoming executive director will have their work cut out for them as the HPCA board spent more than an hour at its April meeting with a visioning consultant, Word Search, to clarify the future of Park City’s Main Street.
This came up at last month’s meeting when city officials asked the HPCA if they would support moving money slated from the resort city sales tax for Main Street to the Arts and Culture District on Kearns Boulevard instead.
“It's been a long time since we've looked at what we needed to have done for the area,” said Kuhlow. “Our last time that we had taken a moment out to do some visioning and to really lay out a plan was in 2011, so that was 10 years ago. So, we felt like this is a great opportunity to update our vision, especially since the council is asking - what are we trading when we spend money in one location versus another? So, we felt like, let's kick this off - let's start this process.”
Kuhlow is confident the alliance can come together on a future vision of Main Street.
“Well, we've done it before, so I do believe that it can be done again, I think it's all about how you do it,” she said. “And that's going to be where the rubber hits the road. We can go through a visioning process and only include those we want and have an idea of what we want for the future, and kind of have that process take us there. But what I really see the board wanting to do is actually dig down and say ‘no, what do we want Main Street to look like, how can Main Street’s continuous evolution continue to be relevant and continue to be the heart of town.”
One of the projects for the visioning process will be the future of the Wasatch Brew Pub public parking lot at the south end of Main Street.
At one point, this area was envisioned as a community gathering spot. Kuhlow says the board will need to decide if that’s what’s best for the property.
There will also likely be discussions about “pedestrianizing” the thoroughfare. Right now, she says that’s just an idea, not a plan.
She says the board will also consider other visioning consultants before choosing one for the next step. She expects that it will be at least a six-month process.
