Deer Valley Resort is proposing a five-year timeline to construct a major development at its Snow Park base area while continuing ski operations.
The vision for Snow Park Village includes lodging, residences, commercial space and an underground transit hub. A parking structure with 1,971 stalls would replace surface lots.
Under the resort’s plan, construction would begin in May on infrastructure and the three-level partially underground parking structure, with the work continuing in 2026 and 2027. When the first portion of the structure is completed, some spaces would be available there in the 2027-28 season.
Vertical development of the project — construction of a hotel, residences, an event center and retail space — would be done from 2028 through 2030. The timeline notes Park City will host the Winter Olympic Games in 2034.
The timeline lists an expanded ski beach and a Silver Lake gondola in 2029.
The Park City Planning Commission on Wednesday reviewed the phasing of the project and a plan by Deer Valley to mitigate the impact of the construction and heard comments from community members. The commissioners will continue the discussion at their Dec. 11 meeting.
Planning Commission staff members have recommended the mitigation plan meet 37 conditions for the project to get approval. Those conditions address traffic circulation, parking, delivery of construction materials, work hours, trash management and recycling, control of dust and mud on the streets, noise ordinance compliance, grading and excavations, erosion control, construction sign requirements and transit services, among others.
The construction mitigation plan notes the number of parking spaces available will be reduced during certain construction phases and Deer Valley has proposed having a temporary drop-off and pick-up area at lots 5 and 6 and using trams to transport skiers.
The resort also proposes using the Richardson Flat park-and-ride for a portion of off-site parking in collaboration with Park City and increasing the frequency of service on the Deer Valley Express bus route. In addition, Deer Valley would use 208 parking spaces at Jordanelle State Park and operate shuttles from there to Deer Valley East Village and Snow Park Lodge.
Construction employees would park at Richardson Flat and take public transit to the Snow Park Base area, according to the plan.
Proposed construction hours in the mitigation plan were 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday. There would be no construction during the week from Christmas to New Year’s Day, federal holidays and major events, including the Sundance Film Festival.
Staff members requested that Deer Valley provide a plan regarding the end of construction at 4:30 p.m. and the overlap with peak traffic during the winter season. The resort responded that the project’s general contractor and construction employees would be scheduled to avoid that conflict.
Deer Valley estimates 467,000 cubic yards of excavation materials will be used to construct Snow Park Village and has proposed hauling the soil within the Snow Park ski area. The resort would have to provide a noise management plan for trucks that go uphill for excavation and hauling.
During the public hearing, two community members said they support having a parking reservation system to cut down on traffic in the area.
One of them also was concerned about how noisy the construction could be, especially from jackhammering. In addition, she would have liked the project hours to start a little later and end later in the evening instead of at 4:30 p.m., “the exact same time that the skiers and employees tend to depart the resort.”
Krista Sprenger, chief development officer of Alterra Mountain Company, which owns Deer Valley, told the Planning Commission the company is unwavering in its commitment to climate action and has embraced science-based carbon reduction goals.
Alterra wants all its resorts to reduce carbon emissions in its operations by more than 50%, transition to 100% renewable energy and attain carbon neutrality by 2030, Sprenger said. The development team is working to integrate those goals into its designs.
To help the Snow Park project meet those targets, the team is looking at ten categories of sustainability that include energy and carbon; water; resilience; waste operations and maintenance; site; equity and empowerment; mobility; indoor environmental quality; materials; and certification requirements.
For Snow Park, “we believe that it’s an incredible opportunity to be a showcase for sustainability,” Sprenger said. “So we want to go well above and beyond the goals that Alterra has set.”