The Skullcandy headquarters in Kimball Junction will have a new owner: Summit County.
The County Council on Thursday approved a $17.5 million agreement to purchase the 45,000-square-foot building that’s leased to the audio-tech company. The acquisition will be funded using existing sales tax revenues to pay off bonds that are issued. Officials said they don’t intend to impose additional taxes or increase taxes.
The site will be used for municipal purposes, and some county offices may move there.
Skullcandy is located on a 7.38-acre lot owned by an affiliate of Dakota Pacific Real Estate. It is not directly related to the ongoing rezone application in the nearby Park City Tech Center.
However, the County Council is considering a public-private partnership with the development firm for the broader area as negotiations over the mixed-use project continue.
“Summit County has worked for years to identify a suitable location for a new county facility in the Snyderville Basin,” County Council Chair Malena Stevens said in a statement. “The council has explored options to acquire an existing property such as the Skullcandy headquarters compared to the cost feasibility of building a new facility. Existing infrastructure may best serve our community in a more fiscally responsible manner.”
The County Council had considered building a new facility on the Gilmor parcel to provide additional staff space, but it was cost prohibitive. Officials also considered a $24 million overhaul of the existing Justice Center to accommodate the Summit County Sheriff’s Office and the County Attorney’s Office but pivoted to a remodel plan while they looked for more room.
County Councilor Chris Robinson said officials in February saw a listing for the Skullcandy headquarters from commercial real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield. The portfolio also included two 60,000-square-foot office buildings in Newpark. Those sites went to other interested buyers.
Officials said they engaged in a competitive process and were ultimately selected to purchase the Skullcandy building. There’s a 30-day due diligence period under the agreement with an additional 30 days to close the deal.
“We’re excited about this building because we think this is a very important area. We already have a footprint here on (the Richins Building parcel),” Robinson said in a interview Wednesday with local media. “We have aspirations of doing more transit, perhaps a captured parking lot here, and we’re eager to have some flexibility in the long run with this site. Its location, from our point of view, is excellent for the county’s purposes.”
Summit County has no immediate plans to move into the Skullcandy building, which is estimated to be at least twice the size of the Richins Building.
The audio-tech company brought its headquarters to Kimball Junction in 2017 to help diversify the local economy. It was one of two commercial buildings, the other being the Park City Visitors Center, built under the 2008 Tech Center development agreement, which limits what can be built there to mostly research and office buildings.
County Manager Shayne Scott said the site wasn’t built for municipal services. However, renovating the property would still save the county money in the long run compared to building something new.
The 152-unit affordable complex, Liberty Peak Apartments, was also built as part of the original agreement. Dakota Pacific purchased the Tech Center property in 2018, inheriting the development agreement.
Officials estimated Skullcandy pays around $1 million to lease the property. Robinson said that would provide a cash flow until the county moves in, though county staffers may only occupy a portion of the building and share the remaining space with Skullcandy employees.
The acquisition also includes an easement option agreement that would be executed at closing to allow the sellers to do additional work on the property. One project includes creating a new public road near the roundabout at Olympic Parkway that wraps around the Skullcandy headquarters to improve access in the area.
Robinson said this would provide an additional connection to where the Dakota Pacific project might be located, but the development firm is paying for it.
“We were looking at the building before thinking hard about the public-private partnership. There is some serendipity if we were to do the things outlined,” Robinson said Wednesday. “There’s a lot of things to take place and to be thought about. The devil is in the details … but in concept, the idea of having additional land next to the (Skullcandy) building isn’t a bad thing. There’s some synergy to having more of a campus.”
The special meeting for the vote lasted about 10 minutes. Public comment was not taken.
Officials said they were careful to keep the discussions about the Skullcandy purchase and the Dakota Pacific project separate. The money to purchase the headquarters would not be used to pay for the development firm’s mixed-use proposal.
Robinson, who is on the Dakota Pacific subcommittee, said the group met for the first time this week. It was a preliminary discussion.