Park City has long worked to protect its silver-mining heritage, part of a history seen as setting the community apart from many of its mountain-town competitors.
The city could eventually consider protections for places associated with another sort of era that few places can also claim.
The municipal government may someday weigh whether to place protections on locales that played a role during the 2002 Winter Olympics.
The topic was broached during an open house on Tuesday centered on the efforts to update the municipal General Plan, an overarching document that guides growth in Park City. The possibility of protections for locations from the Games in 2002 has not been a key topic in the discussions about the General Plan, but it is nonetheless noteworthy in a community that promotes its Winter Olympic legacy and is in the early stages of preparations for the Games of 2034.
A panel on display at the open house at Miners Hospital asked attendees whether City Hall should “evaluate designation of significant sites related to the 2002 Winter Olympics?”
“Park City welcomed the world for the 2002 Winter Olympics and is preparing to host the Winter Olympics once again in 2034. Art installations throughout the city and the plaza at the intersection of Park Avenue and Kearns Boulevard are key features representing this important era of Park City’s history,” the panel said.
People at the open house overwhelmingly backed designations by affixing stickers in support on the panel.
There was little information available by the end of the week about the possibility of designations. City Hall in response to a Park Record inquiry provided a prepared statement indicating the panel at the open house “was designed to gather input on whether respondents have sites of significance from the 2002 Winter Olympics that they would like to see preserved — similar to how residents advocates, property owners, and Park City Municipal successfully implemented recommendations in the 2014 General Plan to prioritize historic preservation of our mining era structures.”
The prepared statement did not address whether designations, if they are pursued, would apply to public properties and private ones. The statement also did not address what sorts of restrictions, if any, would be under consideration with a designation.
The Park City area had a large role during the Games 23 years ago, with Park City Mountain, Deer Valley Resort and the Utah Olympic Park hosting competitions. Various other non-competition locations scattered through Park City were important to the overall staging of the Games. A similar scenario is expected during the Winter Olympics in 2034.
Park City has promoted the Winter Olympic legacy since shortly after the Games closed in 2002. There are reminders like a sculpture of a giant torch off the Bonanza Drive-Kearns Boulevard intersection and the Olympic Welcome Plaza at the intersection of Park Avenue and Kearns Boulevard. A series of plaques commemorate various locations activated in some fashion during the Games.