PLACE PC plans to submit its petition at Thursday's Park City Council meeting, opposing the current trajectory for the Bonanza Park 5-acre site.
The city-owned land at Kearns Boulevard and Bonanza Drive has a shuttered gas station and is otherwise bare. Park City Municipal bought it in 2017 with the hope of creating an arts and culture district.
Almost a decade later, the city council has selected a design by Brinshore Development with a mix of housing and park space.
PLACE PC is advocating for “more park, less city,” a tagline it has put on T-shirts and yard signs. The group has proposed alternative designs on its website. Group member Tom Seitz said the city needs to take a pause.
“Once we saw physically what it looked like and what was being proposed and the way in which it was being funded, et cetera, we started asking questions about it,” he said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Aug. 11. “And we were reinforced, if you will, by the significant number of people that came to us, and in the case of our petition drive, signed the petition in order to say, ‘Wait a second, we had no idea this was about to happen.’”
The city is contributing up to $40 million from hotel room sales taxes to split the cost of development with Brinshore.
Wednesday is the first of at least two public hearings the Park City Planning Commission has scheduled for the project. There have been several such hearings in the past year before the city council voted to move forward.
It would be up to the council to reverse course on its March 2026 decision to move forward with the Brinshore plans, so that’s who PLACE PC plans to address on Thursday.
Of the estimated 2,000 people who signed the petition, PLACE PC’s Kelly Pfaff says the majority are Park City residents. Some who signed it at The Market grocery store were from elsewhere in Summit County or Salt Lake City.
Pfaff said they’re all spending money in Park City and are united by an appreciation for natural beauty and mountain views. The height of the 5-acre project is one of PLACE PC’s biggest concerns.
“We're realizing actually a lot of people don't know about the project, and so it's been nice to be that information piece for them, showing what the city's been doing with it,” she said. “We've had a lot more support than we were even realizing we were going to get.”
Project supporters say that it delivers on many of the things the petitioners want.
“We call on the city council to pursue a different vision on this site: a public park for Parkites, a central gathering place for recreation, local arts, municipal use and community enjoyment,” Pfaff said, reading from the petition.
About 2 acres in the middle of the 106 proposed residential units will remain open with a small amphitheater, playground and lawn space.
The majority of the residences, 88, would be affordable, and there would be commercial spaces on the ground floor of each building.
Park City Municipal is a financial supporter of KPCW.
