Wednesday, February 28, 2024
A brouhaha is brewin' in Park City over plans for a massive development at Kimball Junciton
Urban Living
Posted By Babs De Lay on February 28, 2024, 4:00 AM
As one of my editors said to me last week, "There's a brouhaha a-brewin' at Kimball Junction in Park City"! Well, she wasn't talking about the Sundance Film Festival, because that's over now. The issue is about Dakota Pacific's proposal to build 727 homes, 37 buildings, 235,000 square feet of commercial space and 31,000 square feet of retail space at Kimball Junction.
In the 1850s and 1860s, homesteaders settled in and around Park City at Snyderville Basin, Parley's Park and Kimball Junction. They were harvesting timber from the mountainsides, working in the silver mines and growing food to feed their families.
William Kimball built a stage coach station at the head of Parley's Canyon in 1862. He built a bridge there across the creek and a hotel that was noted for its great food. People like Walt Whitman and Mark Twain stayed there while travelers and business folk came and went on the Holladay Stage line and the Wells Fargo Express. While the original structures are gone, the pristine meadows remain.
Kimball Junction serves as a gateway to Park City and Deer Valley and locals have fought hard over the decades to preserve the vistas and plant and animal life in the vast green spaces there. It would be easy to bulldoze the valley and build expensive homes there but then that gasp we experience seeing the beauty of the area when we exit Interstate 80 toward Park City would be forever gone.
The Swaner Preserve and Ecocenter is a 1,200-acre wildlife refuge alongside the homes and commercial properties of the Redstone and Newpark districts at Kimball Junction. It was gifted to Utah State University in 2010 for oversight. It's not in danger of going away, but realize land is precious and privately-held land around it is incredibly valuable to developer potential.
Dakota Pacific (DP), an investment group, purchased the land near the Preserve in 2018 and was approved to build a commercial Tech Center. Last year, the Utah state Legislature passed—and Governor Spencer Cox signed—SB84, circumventing local land use authorities. Summit County then sued DP in 2023 and won an injunction to stop such a huge development, but DP appealed.
One of the biggest issues is the traffic impact on the area if the project goes forward. Locals feel that the developer needs to pay attention to the community in which the project is located and that the current plan calls for overdeveloping the area and possibly increasing traffic at Kimball Junction by over 3,700 cars a day. Planners argue that combining housing and commercial spaces can reduce the demand for driving, and UDOT is exploring a new bus rapid transit line between Kimball Junction and Park City to help locals bypass traffic congestion.
The Summit County Council has met with DP and the developer is going to bring a few more ideas to the table especially regarding affordable housing and lower density. Stay tuned as growth vs housing, density and transportation issues will continue to be hot topics around the state for years to come as we just keep growing and growing.
About The Author
Babs De Lay
A full-time broker/owner of Urban Utah Homes and Estates, Babs De Lay serves on the Salt Lake City Historic Landmark Commission. A writer and golfer, you'll find them working as a staff guardian at the Temple at Burning Man each year.
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