Deer Valley’s Long-Envisioned Snow Park Village, a Large Development, Nears
Deer Valley Resort’s Snow Park Lodge parking lots were identified as a location for major development in the original Deer Valley approval documents in the 1970s. A Deer Valley executive says the resort by the end of 2019 or in early 2020 intends to submit plans to City Hall for the initial infrastructure work.
A Deer Valley Resort executive on Wednesday said the resort by the end of 2019 or in early 2020 intends to submit plans to City Hall for the initial infrastructure work needed for the eventual development of the Snow Park Lodge parking lots.
The development will be a project with origins dating back decades and one that is expected to transform Snow Park from a spot to essentially begin and end a ski day into a full resort complex. Discussions about a project at the Snow Park lots would almost certainly draw intense interest across Park City as people who live or have properties in Deer Valley learn about the possibilities for development in such a crucial location while people elsewhere in Park City consider the prospects of a revamped base at a time when other significant resort projects in the area, such as the expected development of the Park City Mountain Resort parking lots and Mayflower Mountain Resort off U.S. 40, progress.
Steve Issowits, who is Deer Valley’s director of real estate and resort planning, addressed the Park City Planning Commission on Wednesday night regarding the separate topic of overflow parking outside Snow Park Lodge. Issowits, though, briefly mentioned the development during his comments to the Planning Commission. The information was some of the most significant from Deer Valley in recent years regarding the development of the parking lots. The Planning Commission did not dwell on the topic of the development, but the panel will eventually be the body that considers an application.
In an interview after the meeting, Issowits said Deer Valley has a goal of submitting plans to City Hall for the utilities and the garage for the development, known as Snow Park Village, by late 2019 or early 2020. The utility plan and the blueprints for the garage will have overriding importance for the broader talks about a development that would occur later. The utility and garage plans would be put before the Planning Commission.
“Huge step. It’s a lot of work. We need quite a bit of time for planning,” Issowits said.
The discussions about the garage will likely be especially notable in the early stages of talks regarding Snow Park Village. The overall development is slated to occupy the ground where the Snow Park lots are located. Deer Valley intends to build a garage to hold the parking spots lost to the development. There are approximately 1,250 spots in the lots, and replacing them will require significant construction.
The concept of development where the lots are now located was included in Deer Valley’s original approval documents in the 1970s. The overall approval from that era essentially spelled out development locations stretching between Snow Park and Silver Lake Village. The original approval allows 210 residential units like condominiums and townhouses totaling 420,000 square feet at the location of the Snow Park lots. It also involves 21,000 square feet of commercial space and another 20,000 square feet of commercial space designed to support the residences. The 420,000-square-foot total does not include the space needed to operate a high-end lodging property, sometimes known as the back-of-house space.
Issowits said the work on the utilities and the garage could commence in 2022, at the earliest, and more likely several years later, depending on the approval process. The resort could approach the Planning Commission with the development itself as early as a year after the work on the utilities and garage starts.
The talks about Snow Park Village would attract broad interest in the community. People who have properties in lower Deer Valley and along the Deer Valley Drive entryway to Snow Park will likely raise questions about the traffic a development would attract. Those with properties that have views of the slopes outside Snow Park Lodge, meanwhile, could raise concerns if they see a development as having effects on the sightlines. Others without interests in Deer Valley would also watch the process since the project will be one of Park City’s largest and would have a ripple effect on tourism, traffic and business.
Discussions about a development at Snow Park would be held amid an era of growth in the Park City resort industry as the community continues to enjoy a strong post-recession era. Park City Mountain Resort owner Vail Resorts intends to sell the PCMR parking lots to a developer to pursue a major project. A firm called Extell Development Company has publicized plans to create what it is calling Mayflower Mountain Resort — a freestanding resort — on land adjacent to Deer Valley in Wasatch County.
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