Blue Sky Ranch hosts the luxury resort Lodge at Blue Sky in Wanship, just north of the Snyderville Basin.It’s also home to High West Distilling’s headquarters, and soon, a brand new resort facility.
The Eastern Summit County Planning Commission voted unanimously to approve the “Crescent Lodge at Blue Sky Ranch” Feb. 1. It’s a new standalone facility north of the existing lodge.
It will have 16 rooms, a restaurant, a spa and yoga facilities.
Blue Sky was already allowed to build the Crescent Lodge; it just had to stop at the planning commission to mitigate any adverse effects.
Neighbors were concerned about traffic. Blue Sky is mitigating that by building an offsite parking lot closer to Interstate 80 and bussing any large parties into the resort, instead of encouraging personal car use.
Other concerns were about wastewater polluting a nearby stream. Owner Mike Phillips clarified Blue Sky doesn’t dump waste into the stream and will monitor its quality.
There may be pollutants originating upstream of the resort that it can’t control, he said Feb. 1.
“We'll have to see what really is causing that. We have some thoughts about what may be coming upstream from our property,” Phillips told the planning commission.
Planners were convinced Blue Sky had prepared the necessary mitigations and gave Phillips the go-ahead. A construction timeline wasn't announced.
