Since the announcement of Park City’s plan to create an arts and culture district in the Bonanza Park neighborhood in July 2017, residents have wondered what it will look like—and when it will be finished.
Park City Budget Manager Nate Rockwood presented some concepts for the Arts and Culture District to the City Council during its annual retreat, including an artist-in-residence program, a culinary arts facility and a high-tech performance space. The goal for the city is to complement the features Kimball Art Center and the Sundance Institute have conceived for their own facilities as well as to build a community, complete with transit and affordable housing.
With the Sundance Film Festival behind them, all stakeholders will begin meeting again on Feb. 15. The master planned development process will begin September 2019 and continue through March 2020, with Park City putting forward the MPD in coordination with Kimball and Sundance. Rockwood says it’s the intention of the stakeholders to bring a complete MPD to the Park City Planning Department, with the design for the project all laid out.
Councilmember Steve Joyce expressed concern over moving forward with the design process while simultaneously going through the MPD process.
“There’s a set of issues that can show up as part of an MPD, like the 100-foot entry corridor exceptions and things like that, that could dramatically impact the development if you got too far along, and therefore could waste months of architectural time and stuff.”
Rockwood said that’s why the city is leading the MPD process, and that he and Community Development Director Anne Laurent will keep the design in line with the land management code.
“You know, Anne and I are the ones that are kind of leading this effort," Rockwood said. "Anne has as good a handle as anyone can have on what is going to be acceptable and what isn’t going to be acceptable, so we’re staying very close to that. Not very close—we’ve promised that we’ll bring this thing in within the code.”
Rockwood anticipates site preparation for the project will begin in spring 2020. Construction would follow in spring 2021 and go through spring 2023.
