The president of the homeowners association of King’s Crown on Friday said it is unclear whether there is a danger of additional earth coming down a hillside where a landslide occurred in late April, indicating investigations are continuing into the dramatic slide in the vicinity of Park City Mountain.
King’s Crown is under construction just uphill from Marriott’s MountainSide. Rory Murphy, a veteran Park City developer who is a partner in the firm that developed King’s Crown, said in an interview the possibility of further sliding could not be predicted at the end of the workweek.
“It’s simply not known,” he said, describing the land could be “pretty stable” or “an issue.”
The landslide broke near the property line between the King’s Crown project and Park City Mountain. The slide path is also outside Marriott’s MountainSide at the base of Park City Mountain.
Murphy said the danger of a slide on nearby land also is not known. He said there has been some “settling” in the slide zone. There are still rocks sliding, but there had not been large sloughs since the initial slide, through Friday morning, he said.
Murphy said the developer has been meeting with City Hall about the situation and has tapped geotechnical and civil engineering consultants.
He said the King’s Crown team is in talks with the municipal Public Works Department, Water Department and Building Department. He said a water line and a storm drain are located in the area of the slide, requiring the involvement of waterworks and public works officials from City Hall.
He said work on the wider King’s Crown development is continuing amid the investigation. The work was not stopped in the section of the construction zone closest to the slide, he said. Murphy previously indicated the project had not encountered issues with the ground prior to the slide and there had not been warning signs of a threat.
King’s Crown, a residential development, is under construction slightly uphill from Marriott’s MountainSide. The top of the slide is close to one of the ends of Rothwell Road, which is a private street off Lowell Avenue that serves King’s Crown.
The slide measured approximately 100 feet in length and approximately 70 feet in width. It was estimated to be 15 feet deep at its deepest point. Nobody was injured at the construction zone. There were also no injuries at Marriott’s MountainSide. An exterior wall was pushed into a villa, which was unoccupied. Park City Mountain said there was no damage at the resort
Murphy has said a preliminary investigation indicated the ground that slid was oversaturated as a result of the heavy snow in the winter and the spring. The oversaturation contributed to the instability in the ground that preceded the slide, he has said.
A timeline for formal reports about the incident is not known.
A landslide is extremely rare in Park City even with the steep terrain in many places. The slide at King’s Crown occurred after an extraordinary winter of snowfall and followed other issues in the Park City area related to the snow, including structure collapses.