Matthew Prince sees the development patterns in the Park City area resembling a place many Parkites left when they moved to Utah: Southern California.
Prince, who recently acquired the key holdings at the Town Lift base through a limited liability company under his control, became an influential figure in the Main Street core via the transaction and has broad visions for the future of the shopping, dining and entertainment strip. Prince, who lives in Old Town and grew up in Park City, is the co-founder and CEO of internet security firm Cloudflare. He co-owns The Park Record with his wife, Tatiana Prince.
Prince in an interview mentioned Los Angeles as he spoke about growth in Park City and the surrounding area. Utah has long wanted to manage growth differently than Southern California in an effort to curb sprawl, and that thinking has also influenced officials in Park City and surrounding Summit County.
“What I worry is happening to Park City, is Park City is building L.A., where we’re going to have mediocrity spread far and wide,” he said.
Prince said Los Angeles is “so spread out in every direction, and as a result … you can’t solve transit problems because cars are … the only way to get around. … If you actually have great cities, you look at great European cities where they say, here’s the town square. That’s the amazing thing.”
He described the Park City area as having a series of resort bases, such as Canyons Village at Park City Mountain, Deer Valley East Village, Snow Park and the Park City-side base of Park City Mountain.
“What you need is a center and a reason for people to come into town. And that means there should be great shopping. There should be great hotels. There should be great dining. There should be just vibrancy, which is there,” he said. “That is in our vision and the reason we live in Old Town is because we really believe that Main Street, Park City, should be the center.”
He also spoke about the commercial core of Main Street, including Swede Alley. He said the road one block east of Main Street “should have been developed a million years ago” as he also noted the history of Swede Alley, where Chinese immigrants settled during the silver mining era. He described that part of what became Old Town as being “a really vibrant community” during that period.
The acquisition of the Sweeney family holdings at the Town Lift base included the commercial space where the Bridge Cafe and Grill is located, retail spaces fronting Main Street, the Park City Mountain ticket plaza, a significant percentage of the parking spots in the garage underneath the building and the Town Lift Plaza deck.
The deal was among the most notable ownership changes along Main Street in recent years and was finalized at a time when there are discussions underway at City Hall regarding the future of public spaces on or close to Main Street.
Leaders want to ensure Main Street remains competitive with outlying commercial districts. There are numerous possibilities, including developing lodging and residences in an effort to increase the number of people frequenting Main Street and pursuing transportation upgrades that would be designed to increase the accessibility of the commercial district. A timeline for any major improvements is not clear.
“I would be totally supportive of really rethinking what that whole Swede Alley place looks (like). It is crazy to me that City Hall is City Hall, like 20% of China Bridge is taken up with city and county vehicles. That’s just crowding out the ability for people to come and shop at and eat at and experience Main Street. That should be a really cool boutique hotel. You should build other hotels. There should be a grocery store somewhere on Main Street,” he said, identifying some of the ideas that have been mentioned in the municipal government’s talks about Main Street.
He added that the street’s history can be honored at the same time as needing “to get incentives to get actual density and and energy back onto Main Street, and that will make the businesses better. It’ll make everyone more more successful. And it will be a reason that you want to gather.” Prince said the Marsac Building “should, for sure, be a hotel” someday, which is one of the ideas that has been publicized as part of the Main Street discussions.
Prince talked about the downtown cores of some of Park City’s mountain resort competitors as he discussed a vision for the Main Street area. He mentioned Aspen, Colorado, as one of the examples, a place that for decades has been seen as being ahead of many other skiing communities in its vision.
“You can dislike a lot of the people who go to Aspen, but Aspen is, I mean, one of the things is amazing about Aspen is, if you live in Aspen, you come downtown to eat. There are incredible people who are here, but they don’t come downtown to eat. They go off to other places. We should be trying to create a district that looks like what a downtown Aspen looks like, looks like what a downtown Sun Valley looks like, look like what a downtown Jackson looks like,” he said. “And the energy of that, that supports both tourists and locals, is really positive. … Everyone is afraid of creating Disneyland. We already have Disneyland. What we’ve got to get back to is actually creating something where there’s real value and a reason for both tourists and locals to end up there.”