The building that has long been a darkened void in the middle of Main Street has been splashed in orange lights and buzzing with activity during the Sundance Film Festival.
The hulking Claim Jumper, perhaps one of the most visible reflections of the recession’s effects on Park City, has turned into a hot spot, albeit temporarily, during the festival, with the lights on, loud, pulsating music being heard from the outside and lines of people finding out if they are on the list to get inside.
Bing, the Microsoft search engine, rented the building for Sundance, giving the tech firm a high-traffic spot on Main Street that has provided the backdrop for what was dubbed the Bing Bar, a celebrity draw.
The Claim Jumper has essentially been a bank-owned building since an Arizona developer scrapped plans to redevelop it into a boutique hotel. The lenders took over in a trustee’s sale in 2009. There has been little activity at the Claim Jumper in recent years as the former owners and then the lender considered options amid the recession.
“We got started with the bare bones,” said Sean Carver, the marketing director for Bing and the figure who oversees the setup in the Claim Jumper.
The Bing team looked at the Claim Jumper in October and started creating its Sundance space by early December, more than a month before Sundance opened. Carver declined to discuss the amount of money Bing spent to turn the Claim Jumper into the Bing Bar. The setup closed on Wednesday night, and crews began tearing down the Bing Bar on Thursday. The shutdown before the close of Sundance is typical for corporate interests that rent temporary space in Park City. They want to be visible during the celebrity-heavy opening weekend of Sundance, and many dismantle their spaces by the middle of the week.
Inside the Claim Jumper, the Bing people turned what was a largely gutted building into one that had plush furniture, a bookcase, a bar stacked with bottles of hard alcohol and a deejay platform. There were decorative graffiti pieces, including an image of pop art master Andy Warhol, throughout the Bing space. Many of the walls were painted in a reddish hue. The Bing name was splashed throughout the space.
“It’s exactly how I wanted it to look,” Carver said, adding that it was important for his team to start to create the space so early.
In some places, the organizers posted photos of what the rooms looked like prior to the Bing construction crews starting. The photos show rooms with little beyond exposed carpentry, a reminder of the condition the building is in.
The Bing Bar, which was an invitation-only space, hosted concerts, a speaker series and parties, with the events on Saturday and Sunday night attracting the largest crowds, according to a publicist involved with the Bing Bar. It was a spot for many celebrity interviews as well.
It was among the hottest places during the opening days of Sundance, with a line of people trying to get into the building and celebrity watchers hanging out to catch a glimpse of the stars who were inside. Some of the stars who Bing said visited the Claim Jumper included Sundance founder Robert Redford, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Adrian Grenier and Forest Whitaker.
The Park City Police Department received at least four complaints involving the Claim Jumper in the opening days of Sundance, including one involving crowd control outside and one having to do with loud music being heard by someone behind the building.
Carver said Bing would like to return to the Claim Jumper during next year’s film festival if the space is available. The Claim Jumper remains on the market, but there have not been indications that a sale is imminent. If it is sold, it could take a new owner some time to craft blueprints to redevelop the building, perhaps into a boutique lodge like the one that the former owners had envisioned.
Some of the stores and restaurants on Main Street watched as the Claim Jumper was remade into the Bing Bar, with the leader of the Historic Park City Alliance, a business group, saying it was exciting to see the building occupied.
Alison Butz, who is the group’s executive director, said the Bing Bar brought activity to that part of Main Street and it was a “nice draw” for nearby businesses.
“Anytime you have a vacant building, I think the town doesn’t look as healthy,” Butz said.