Architect Craig Elliott, who represents outlets owner Singerman Real Estate, said the development team wants to increase the pace of discussions with the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission.
“We have a fortress of retail, where our backs are turned to the community,” he told commissioners. “We want to change that.”
The outlets owner has been pursuing a rezone for about a year. It needs a recommendation from the planning commission before the Summit County Council can vote on it.
Summit County Planner Amir Caus said the commission’s three newest members got their first look at the project during the Feb. 11 meeting. The goal was to reaffirm the board’s consensus on the overall vision.
Elliott explained the general idea is to consolidate retail in the lower parking lot, turn the upper outlets into residential and “cut open holes in the fortress.”
“If you look around, it's clear this whole area was developed auto-centric, right? It was really 1970s: get your car, drive someplace and then go drive somewhere else. That's not what we want to see here,” the architect said. “We see this as an opportunity to become the village core of the western side of [state Route] 224.”
That means special attention to pedestrian connections.
Commissioners asked clarifying questions Feb. 11 but aren’t expected to vote on the project for weeks if not months.
During discussions about the recently-approved Shake Shack in the lower lot, an attorney for Singerman said, nationally, retail isn’t as successful as it used to be.
The owner wants to keep shoppers in the outlets longer, which it believes makes economic, and community, sense.
