Can we make Old Town more inviting for locals? Can we bring locals back to their town? Of course we can! Can we all agree that Main Street is critical to our community past, present and future — it is our heart, even if it is breaking right now?
We have a second chance. Let’s get it right this time!
We have spent eight years trying to split 10s, making an artificial arts and culture district to compete with our prized golden goose — historic Main Street. I cannot imagine the money our taxpayers have ponied up to support this gravel pit, and if truth be told, I don’t believe we are one iota closer to putting a shovel in the ground than we were the day after we bought that money pit eight years ago. I truly hope this new city council proves me wrong.
Before I get to the historic Old Town solutions, I regrettably must delve into more of nonsense that city leaders have put us though over the past decade.
Tom Clyde wrote an incredible column a month ago, “More plans on Main Street.” it is an absolute must-read. So let’s begin with my reply to Tom before ending with my solutions for our broken heart:
Dear Tom,
I loved your article in The Park Record on Dec. 28. While City Hall lacks historical knowledge, there is a bit of historical city knowledge left in the citizens and herein I’d love to help you out on some of the issues you raised.
The lack of consensus with Old Town planning was brought about when City Hall stalled and then finally decided to shun the unified Historic Park City Alliance’s (HPCA) unanimous recommendation for hiring the visioning team of Murray-Twohig out of London. Yes, the entire HPCA board was unified and unanimous for years, hoping that city leaders would hire Murray-Twohig! Tom, that is real consensus when the HPCA is unanimous!
Then when one of our beloved HPCA leaders, Tana Toly, became a city councilor (January 2022), she advocated and petitioned her fellow city leaders on HPCA’s behalf. She was repeatedly told to be patient as City Hall had more pressing priorities like the gravel pit at Kearns and Bonanza. City Hall promised Tana they would get to us, their most reliable taxpayers.
Two years passed and then Tana finally got back to us, saying that City Hall decided to finally launch the Main Street Area Plan (May 2024). City Hall stated its desire to create “the vision for the future with a tangible and feasible project list.”
Tana broke the news that instead of hiring Murray-Twohig, they hired an ex-City Hall employee to lead this effort because one of the key objectives now is to enhance economic vibrancy. Turns out he worked in the economic development department for over a year at Marsac before he quit. Tana assured me I was going to love this ex-employee, Eric Dentiz; “after all, he does great spreadsheets.” I wanted to vomit. The economic driver for Old Town is “historic preservation”!
Eric and his visioning team presented massive new density on Swede Alley and Marsac, claiming that this would create massive new tax dollars for our city without a single added parking stall. Tom, forgive them, for they have no recollection of the Main Street Mall or the lower Main Street plaza disasters.
Never was HPCA consulted or involved in the hiring of their ex-employee, nor any of his associates. If you need to know more than the fact that HPCA was united in recommending Murray-Twohig for this critical visioning, please take a moment to review Murray-Twohig’s online resume: murraytwohig.com/places/.
Furthermore, I hope you’re sitting down, Tom, because after Murray-Twohig was rejected by City Hall, Murray-Twohig went on to work for Extell at Deer Valley’s East Village. Obviously, Gary Barnett, just like HPCA, felt they were very qualified.
Speaking of gondolas, Tom, City Hall’s deliberate lack of presentation details for their new “proposed” gondola alignment connecting Snow Park to Brew Pub is the same boondoggle that Mayor Andy Beerman used when he told our community that Deer Valley Drive could be used as a gondola alignment to connect Snow Park to the Old Town transit center, thereby reducing the traffic on this corridor. You see, Tom, Parkites are in love with “proposed” gondolas. If you throw it out there, you’ll get tremendous support and deflect from what your hidden agenda or your shortcomings are. Until of course you study the alignment and obstacles.
Let’s go back to 2018, Tom, when Mayor Andy actually told UDOT to pound sand on the S.R. 248 Bus Rapid Transit project widening 248 for exclusive bus lanes. We had lined up all the tens of millions of dollars for the project and spent millions more on the required feasibility reports. Andy promised us he had a better transit idea and it was “sustainable.” UDOT told us this project was our best answer for the next 20-30 years and they might have mentioned that they were the experts more than a dozen times. Anyway, Andy and his city staff went on to tell us not to worry.
It took me three years to get our city engineer, John Robertson, to come before the Planning Commission and finally state for the record that the Deer Valley Drive gondola alignment Mayor Andy had proposed had maybe 18 or so eminent domain and detachment issues that would make this alignment impossible. So obviously, after City Hall was on the record that Deer Valley Drive was impossible, this new visioning team had to move their proposal to the Brew Pub. Yep, Snow Park to Old Town gondola is boondoggle No. 2!
Does today’s City Hall really think all the alternative alignments weren’t studied when Mayor Andy settled on Deer Valley Drive as their best boondoggle? Deer Valley Drive never had a chance of working and neither does the Brew Pub alignment. Period.
Now it’s time to face head-on the No. 1 issue our beloved historic Old Town’s heart is begging for us to address. Yes, Tom, it’s the P word: Parking! City Hall simply needs to be transparent and tell us what is the number of parking stalls required under the existing commercial and residential density here in Old Town (under the International Building Code, section 17.27), not their own city staff-made-up codes.
How in the world can we mitigate and/or solve our parking problem if we don’t know the math? The IBC is based strictly on health, safety and welfare. God forbid it may also require mitigation before additional density occurs.
Tom, please help inform all Parkites how historic Old Town has been abused by ideologues who think they know better than the experts and get Old Town strategic and efficient parking alongside real transit, gondola and shuttle mitigation solutions.
All the best,
JK
So, growing up at my dinner table, we were not allowed to complain unless you had an idea to make things better. My historic Old Town plan will stimulate economic growth far more than stuffing Swede Alley with massive density, ruining our decades-old economic driver — historic preservation.
- We need to buy the Town Lift property that is currently for sale. How in the world are we not opening up access to our “Central Park” (aka Bonanza Flats) year-round? This proposed gondola alignment also can offer access to both ski resorts — for real. Bonanza Flats is our second-most-prized asset, so let’s use it. We paid $40 million plus for our hidden gem, our 1,500-acre “Central Park” playground that has one of the most majestic views and a variety of hiking trails our state offers. Let’s get that cross-country skiing, too. It would cost pennies on the dollar to open Twisted Branch Road and connect from the extended Old Town Lift alignment!
- As Tom mentioned, Old Town is not static! We need to repurpose our Marsac building so that its use “expands, radiates and celebrates” above our historic and our beloved Main Street. The Marsac building is our crown jewel that should be open to every man, woman and child, just like our library is. Bring in Murray-Twohig to present options on how best to repurpose the Marsac building. Put our crown jewel to work for the entire community and stop the financial drain. Build a new, efficient City Hall where it belongs at City Works on Iron Horse, at Gordo, or at the gravel pit.
- Advance strategic Old Town parking and circulation: We must bring more parking into Old Town and create better traffic circulation before a single infill square foot is built in our magical historic Old Town!
- Stop hiring cronies! Bring in the experts who worked on the recent billion-dollar circulation and parking expansion at the Salt Lake airport. We are Park City. We deserve the very best civic doctors!
And lastly, as Tom said, “Don’t screw it up.”
John Kenworthy is a 20-year resident of Old Town, 17-year Main Street business owner, former Park City planning commissioner, former chair of the Historic Preservation Board and former president of the Historic Park City Business Alliance.