As KPCW has reported, Deer Valley is currently in the concept phase of the process to develop their Snow Park base area into a modern resort village. No plans have been released yet, but Deer Valley has shared some of what they are looking to accomplish.
Deer Valley’s original Master Planned Development with Park City has been approved since 1977. The project has been chipped away at over the years with the construction of the resort, the surrounding homes and base lodges, and now, the future development of the Snow Park base area.
The Snow Park area is the last part of the MPD left to be developed, said Steve Issowits, who serves as Deer Valley Director of Real Estate and Planning.
He says according to the agreement, residential units and commercial space are what the resort will be allowed to construct.
“It’s roughly 210 residential units and then it has the remaining commercial for the entire MPD attached to it,” said Issowits. “It’s roughly 20,000 square feet of commercial and currently in the code there’s also allowances for what they call ‘resort accessory use’ and ‘support commercial,’ things like that, but 20,000 square feet of commercial is very small, so we’re trying to best utilize all that.”
Issowits said Deer Valley has submitted an amendment request for the original MPD in order to clarify some of the language in the 44-year-old document and come to an agreement with the city on what is required by the MPD.
Deer Valley President Jeremy Levitt said at last month’s Community Leadership Lecture that internal conceptual discussions, as well as discussions with Park City Municipal, about the project are currently ongoing.
Park City Municipal staff told KPCW they prefer to hold comment on the project until a formal proposal is submitted to the city.
Issowits said the project has been years in the making and will aim to fully modernize the Deer Valley base area, including a better transition from parking to ski slopes.
“We had lots and lots of meetings over the years about how we want the future village and the parking to really integrate better with the snow,” he said. “Obviously, where the road is located and potential bridging and all sorts of things creates a lot of difficulties and separation. So, what our goal is is as we move forward to try and design, do we bring the lifts down further? Do we alter Snow Park Lodge in a way that makes it more integrated with the village? Does the tunnel go away? All those are things that we probably have to figure out and answer on the fairly short order here.”
One detail of the project Deer Valley has been outspoken on is transportation and how the base area will integrate with Park City’s already existing transportation infrastructure.
Levitt mentioned possibly coordinating with the city on a future transportation center at the base area during last month’s leadership lecture and spoke in favor of a conceptual aerial transit network studied by the city last year. If built, a system of gondolas could help ferry people around downtown, including to and from Deer Valley and Park City Mountain Resort.
Alterra Mountain Company bought Deer Valley in 2017 and will help oversee the project. Alterra Vice President of Development Rich Wagner added the timeline for the project is still being worked out at the moment, but it is their hope to have plans before the Park City Planning Commission by the end of this year.
“I think timeline is obviously a dartboard shot right now, but really what we’re going for is a [conditional use permit] submittal, which we’re working hard on,” Wagner said. “So once we get that, we’ll submit that and then timing from there is dependent on how the CUP process goes.”
If the Snow Park Project is approved by the city, Park City could have three major development projects happening simultaneously over the next several years. In addition to Snow Park, development of the base area at PCMR is currently before the planning commission and the arts and culture district plans are still being debated by city council.
