It is well known that Main Street is confronted with increased competition in the Park City area.
The Canyons Village side of Park City Mountain continues to grow, offering lodging, shopping, dining and entertainment. Deer Valley East Village is emerging as a new base area for the resort.
But a member of the Park City Council sees other competitors across the region, as well. Councilor Tana Toly provided some of the notable comments during a council discussion on Thursday about the future of Main Street. She described what she considers to be rising competition from various places within an hour or so drive of Park City.
Salt Lake City, she said, is among them. Toly grew up in Park City and is a member of the family that owns Red Banjo Pizza, the oldest business on Main Street.
“The other things that are threats are just Salt Lake, in general. Salt Lake is becoming really cool. It’s actually, like, a fun place to go. There’s great stuff. There’s great restaurants. There’s great bars,” Toly said.
The city councilor did not discuss details, but the mention of Salt Lake City as a competitor was intriguing in a community that has generally seen itself for decades as a charming, scenic and outdoorsy alternative to the capital city.
Heavy investment, though, is continuing in Salt Lake City in the years before the 2034 Winter Olympics. The various projects are expected to advance the tourism industry as well as attract Salt Lakers and people from the wider Wasatch Front who are also a target market for Park City.
The Power District west of downtown could someday be the location of a Major League Baseball team. The arrival of the Utah Mammoth NHL team spurred improvements to the Delta Center. A major renovation of the Salt Palace Convention Center is planned, while the long-running work at Temple Square is approaching completion.
Toly said the competition stretches through Wasatch County and into northern Utah. That is a change from an earlier time, she said.
“Snowbasin’s doing cool stuff. Ogden’s doing cool stuff. Like, we used to be the only game in the state, and we’re not that way anymore. And we’ve got to stop pretending that it’s just going to stay, like, frozen in time on Main Street. … Heber is becoming cool. Like, we’ve got Heber, we’ve got Midway. All these great things,” Toly said.
Toly’s background at Red Banjo Pizza and her longtime association with Main Street have established her as a leading voice for the shopping, dining and entertainment strip. She often broaches topics at the Marsac Building of consequence to the Main Street core. She honored Main Street Pizza & Noodle shortly after that restaurant ended a decades-long run last spring, as an example.
Park City leaders are continuing to discuss the possibility of improvements to the Main Street core. The meeting on Thursday also covered the future of the aging China Bridge parking garage and the prospects of aerial transit linking the core with Deer Valley Resort. The elected officials were not scheduled to cast votes on the topics.