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National Ability Center moves ahead with new McGrath Family Mountain Center

Artists sketch of the new McGrath Family Mountain Center
National Ability Center
Artists sketch of the new McGrath Family Mountain Center

After working out of a double-wide trailer for nearly 25 years at the base of Park City Mountain Resort, the National Ability Center hopes to get its new mountain center under construction this year. The first work session was held before the Park City Planning Commission last night.

Meeche White, the co-founder of the National Ability Center, is leading this project through the development process. She is now serving as the NAC’s Facility Development Manager.

The NAC first presented plans for the Mountain Center in 2016 when the resort changed hands from Powdr Corp. to Vail Resorts and has been in a holding pattern ever since.

While PEG Companies is still in the process of getting a master plan approval for developing the base parking lots, White says the big hold-up for the NAC was an easement agreement.

“The whole easement was very complex, and there's a lot of owners involved,” White said, “and so they had to work untangle that web of easements so that they could grant an easement for us and then the lodges and the resort and condominiums there and the National Ability Center.”

The building proposal is for a two-story, 9,000-square-foot building just up the slope from where the trailer is currently parked. She says a new center will allow them to consolidate all of their equipment in one space, while allowing for some growth in their programs.

“We have like five different storage buildings surrounding it and outside,” White said. “It’s just not very functional anymore.”

The new McGrath Family Mountain Center she adds will provide a lot of equipment storage as well as locker rooms for both instructors and competitive athletes.

While they work their way through the development approval process, she says they also need to raise $2 million – even with the half-million dollar appropriation the state legislature approved earlier this year. The price of construction she says has gone up 40% since the pandemic began.

The plan is to stay in the trailer until the new building is complete and opens for the 2023-24 ski season.