Deer Valley Resort on Wednesday continued to publicize the ambitious plans to remake the Snow Park base, drawing a large crowd for an informational event that was held as the resort is readying what will be a closely watched submittal to City Hall that is expected in the spring.
The crowd at Snow Park Lodge was a mix of Parkites and people who own vacation properties in Deer Valley. Representatives from City Hall attended, including at least two members of the Park City Council. The crowd spent time perusing poster boards and talking to Deer Valley officials. The event was generally cordial, but some attendees had a variety of concerns about the future of Snow Park.
The Deer Valley team provided information about one of the notable aspects of the vision for Snow Park — the construction of a gondola route that Deer Valley and others hope will ultimately reduce traffic. The gondola concept involves a continuous route connecting Snow Park and a new Deer Valley base planned off U.S. 40 as part of a major expansion of the resort, commonly known as Mayflower.
The conceptual route runs from a point outside Snow Park Lodge to a midstation at Silver Lake Lodge. The route would then run to a spot within the Mayflower expansion known as Park Peak, south of Bald Mountain. The route includes another stop in the Mayflower expansion called Big Dutch Peak before reaching a terminus at the Mayflower base off U.S. 40.
Riders would not need to change gondola cabins to move between the Snow Park and Mayflower bases. The time the route will take is not yet known, Deer Valley leaders said. Operating hours also have not yet been determined, the crowd was told.
The information about a potential gondola route linking the Snow Park and Mayflower bases is notable as Parkites continue to process extraordinary changes envisioned at Deer Valley. The plans for the Mayflower expansion call for more than a doubling of the Deer Valley skiing terrain and the development of the new Deer Valley base area off U.S. 40.
The Snow Park concept involves residences, commercial space, a hotel and entertainment on the land where the resort’s primary parking lots are located. Large garages would be built to account for the parking spots lost as the land is developed.
There has been talk for more than 20 years about the possibility of gondolas or other aerial transit as a means to reduce traffic in the Park City area, but little progress has been made as complaints about traffic mounted over time.
Almost certainly, various parties will revisit the possibilities of aerial transit on a broader scale than the one outlined by Deer Valley. Ideas over time have generally involved linking key locations in Park City, like the resort base areas, the Main Street core and transportation-parking nodes, with aerial routes. The expected awarding this summer of the 2034 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City, with Park City a key part of a second Games, suggests strongly that momentum will build for transportation breakthroughs. Federal investment often occurs as communities prepare to host an Olympics.
The crowd packed the room at Snow Park Lodge on an evening when driving conditions were difficult. A team of Deer Valley officials, led by President and Chief Operating Officer Todd Bennett, engaged the attendees in one-on-one talks and fielded questions from the crowd.
The event came a month after Deer Valley secured a key vote from the Park City Council centered on an alteration to the road network on the perimeter of Snow Park. The elected officials also supported a public-private partnership between City Hall and Deer Valley addressing transportation and housing. The two will each contribute $15 million as part of the partnership. The December actions by the City Council were designed to break a logjam in the discussions about a development at Snow Park.
Deer Valley must return to its talks with the Park City Planning Commission about the project after spending extensive time with Mayor Nann Worel and the City Council in 2023 addressing the alteration to the road network.
There are development rights attached to the land where the Snow Park lots are located dating to a 1970s overall City Hall approval for Deer Valley. The resort, though, must secure another approval before a project can proceed.