Junction Commons, formerly Outlets Park City, has slashed 89 residential units from its redevelopment proposal.
Chicago-based outlet mall owner Singerman Real Estate would bulldoze the upper loop of stores for housing and a parking garage and fill in the lower parking lot with housing too.
But the resulting mixed-use community requires a rezone and therefore buy-in from the Summit County Council.
Architect Craig Elliott said the development team has worked to design what would now be a project where 60% of the housing is affordable.
“We think that's a good balance from a unit side, and we've come up with a good solution to make it work financially for the project,” he told councilmembers June 24.
There would be 370 total units now, 150 for sale or rent at the market rate and 220 affordable, meaning means they’d be reserved for people making, at most, 80% of the county’s median income. The threshold could be less than that.
Councilmembers have asked the developer for more information, since 80% of the area’s median income is still $134,000 for a family of four.
Junction Commons hopes to be the first property granted NMU-1, or neighborhood mixed-use, zoning. It’s been five years since the county created such a zone.
The 220 affordable housing units in the landowner’s proposal would count toward the council’s self-imposed goal of 1,500 affordable housing units approved by 2036.
Canice Harte, the current council chair, asked staff to draft some of the paperwork needed to approve or deny the development.
His colleague Roger Armstrong said that’s a signal a decision is near.
“I assume that the next meeting or the one after we are likely to take a vote,” Armstrong said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” June 25. “I still think there are some concerns about traffic there.”
That’s because the Dakota Pacific project — which will have close to 900 homes — is just next door, and the Utah Olympic Park also has plans to build dozens of units.
But transportation planner Carl Miller told the county council at its June 24 meeting that all those developments combined wouldn’t generate more traffic than Summit County is already planning for.
Those plans are laid out in a document suggesting various projects between now and 2050.
Staff predict the Whole Foods parking lot exit at Landmark Drive will get overrun with cars with or without the Junction Commons redevelopment. County leaders continue to discuss mitigation strategies in the area.
Summit County and Junction Commons are financial supporters of KPCW.
