The PEAK Center is the county government’s vision for the former Skullcandy headquarters. Summit County bought the building last year to replace the Sheldon Richins Building, which will be demolished for new development this year.
New blueprints show how the space is being remodeled to fit the Kimball Junction library, Department of Motor Vehicles and other services.
“We like this idea of a campus,” Deputy County Manager Janna Young told councilmembers March 11. “Where, it’s a hub of services, it's accessible, easy for the public, but also an opportunity … for our departments to not just see each other and interact, but hear conversations and be like, ‘Oh, wait, I'm working on that issue too. Let's collaborate.’”
PEAK stands for Public Engagement at Kimball.
The library will take up most of the first floor, on the west side. The east will be split between the DMV, county council meeting chambers and conference rooms.
Young said the council chambers will be larger than the Richins auditorium, capable of seating at least 200 constituents and spectators.
The Richins Building is about 18,000 square feet total, and the PEAK Center will be about 49,000 square feet, according to county facilities manager Mike Crystal.
Coalville is the county seat, and the courthouse there remains the county government’s headquarters. But like the Richins Building did, the PEAK Center’s second floor will host a number of county offices.
County Manager Shayne Scott told councilmembers that Young is likely to be the only employee moving from Coalville to Kimball Junction.
“We have just offered space for when people are in Kimball Junction and need a place to work, or if there's a day where they're coming from the Salt Lake Valley, and it's just easier if they work in this building,” Young added. “Their permanent office will still be in Coalville, but they have the opportunity to spend some time in this building if it works better for them.”
There will also be office space for High Valley Transit, supplementing its new facility in Silver Summit.
Move-in scheduled for 2026
The county’s goal is to move into the building around July. Young said the county is currently “on schedule and under budget.”
That’s partly because the building came with a rare commodity in the audio engineering world: an anechoic chamber.
“Which is what Skullcandy used to test their headphones,” Young said. “It is a bizarre room. You go in there and there's no sound. It is pretty much just a cell of foam and wire and not even a real floor and big steel doors.”
As “awesome” as she said it would have been to keep the room, it was in the middle of the building where the library will be. So the chamber had to go.
“Emily Quinton actually, in our sustainability department, found a sound engineer friend of hers who has connections out here in Utah, and they were interested in purchasing that chamber from us,” Young said. “Then they actually came in and disassembled it and took it, and so that saved us costs on the demolition side.”
Summit County bought the Skullcandy building from a subsidiary of Dakota Pacific Real Estate for $17.5 million. It has budgeted about $4 million for Zwick Construction to remodel it.
What's next for the existing library
The project is just one part of a wider taxpayer-funded Kimball Junction overhaul. The Utah Department of Transportation plans to widen roads and add turn lanes within the next six years.
And in the Richins Building’s place, the county is working with Dakota Pacific to create underground parking with a mix of apartments and businesses on top.
Earlier this month, the county announced it secured $1 million in federal funding to connect that plaza to the Redstone complex with a pedestrian bridge across state Route 224. The total cost has previously been ballparked at around $4 million.
Summit County is a financial supporter of KPCW.
