The Park City School District hosted the joint meeting of Summit County, Park City and school district officials. The meeting began with a Park City Municipal update on the Kearns Blvd tunnel project delays and the Arts and Culture District development.
Park City Mayor Andy Beerman told the group they’re about six weeks away from having preliminary conceptual plans to share with the public on the Arts and Culture District. The Sundance Institute and the Kimball Arts Center are both anxious to establish a permanent home in the district between Bonanza Drive and Kearns Boulevard. The project also includes a plan to build a transit hub to service both resorts. County Council Members Glenn Wright and Kim Carson told Beerman transit staff is not supportive of a transit hub in that location.
Wright: “Your partners in the transit system don't have a whole lot of support for that idea.”
Beerman: “Well that's news to me, but yeah.”
Wright: “It shouldn’t be.”
Carson: “It's just relating to a concern on what we do with the RT on 248 and where the terminus of that is.”
Beerman: “OK, so yeah in JTAB we need to have further discussion on that.”
Summit County Manager Tom Fisher told the city council and mayor they’ve communicated concerns about the transit hub location to staff for two years. Council Member Tim Henney said it’s the first he’s heard of the concerns and points out the funding of the entire Arts and Cultural District is tied to transit tax revenues.
Henney: “Why is it that we haven’t heard about that?”
Wright: “I don’t know.”
Carson: “I think we have voiced concerns about it not coming up to the transit center. But again, we're going to be having a meeting.”
Henney: “This is the first I’ve heard concerns about the Arts and Culture Transit Hub.”
Fisher: “We’ve been expressing those concerns for over two years.”
Beerman says the transit hub has always been planned for the Arts and Culture District. He says it will be discussed at the next Joint Transit Advisory Board meeting, known as JTAB.
“Since the beginning the plan has put a transit center in there and it's actually with a number of things we're looking at like potential aerial with the resorts in that it’s probably the only landing spot and it's the only large piece of property the city owns. And part of our financing the whole thing was related to tying it into transit. So, I think if the County has concerns, we need to hear about those right away and we'll see where we go.”
The Kearns Boulevard tunnel project has been delayed multiple times but Beerman says there is a hard stop for completion scheduled for November 29th. He’s met with the owner of the construction company and is assured the tunnel will be useable and cleared of construction materials on the street surface by the end of this month.
As reported by KPCW, Park City Municipal will not pursue the UDOT proposal to widen SR 248. Instead, by 2021 they will transition the center lane to accommodate transit and build another more accessible park and ride lot at Quinn’s Junction.
The Joint Transit Advisory Board meets December 17.
