The Park Meadows Plaza landowner is Boston-based Kensington Investment Company. It has an office in Prospector and owns a handful of properties in the area through different LLCs. The company also owns Utah’s tallest building, the new Astra Tower in Salt Lake City.
It’s midway through talks with the Park City Planning Commission about redeveloping the office park on Kearns Boulevard, currently home to the restaurant Tupelo, Park City Bike & Demo and CREATE PC.
Kensington is proposing 117 total housing units, 20 of which would be affordable. Parking would be underground.
During a second discussion Wednesday [Dec. 10], Kensington again asked for increased building heights and reduced setbacks from neighboring roads and properties, despite skepticism during its first planning commission meeting in August.
Kensington also provided the city with a rendering of what the current zoning would allow, without any height or setback exceptions. Commissioner Rick Shand said it was interesting to consider.
“Even though that complies with code, that's totally unacceptable,” he said of the alternative design. “It creates a three-story — even though it's below height limits — three-story frontage on our entry corridor and an open space area inside that kind of … reminds me of the Pentagon a little bit.”
But just because Shand prefers the other layout doesn’t mean he’s sold on the setbacks Kensington says it requires. The developer is asking for 10 feet rather than 25 feet in some areas.
Commissioner Bill Johnson was particularly concerned about reduced setbacks next to the future Holiday Village & Parkside Apartments project, HOPA.
Park Meadows Plaza is between the Kearns Boulevard Wells Fargo branch and the pending HOPA affordable housing.
It’s also kitty-corner to the Bonanza Park five-acre site, where the Park City Council is working with a developer to create another mixed-use community.
Commissioner Henry Sigg, a developer himself, wants to look at the Kensington project in that context going forward.
“I never like to look at a project in the context of what the alternative could be. I would like to look at a project that's brought forward as the project,” he said. “I don't want to look at: ‘Well, if we don't get this, well, you can get this.’”
Sigg asked the developer Wednesday to bring drawings next time that visualize the height from a different angle than the overhead, two-dimensional renderings. Only the innermost portions of the proposed buildings would extend above the 35-foot height limit, up to 50 feet.
Commissioner John Frontero has been the least welcoming to the proposal. That’s primarily because city code says buildings with reduced setbacks should be shorter, and that taller buildings should have more setbacks.
The planning commission didn’t vote on the Kensington project and hasn’t yet scheduled a third conversation.
Park City Municipal is a financial supporter of KPCW.
