City Hall has issued a report supporting High West Distillery’s request for an Old Town grant, indicating that the project is deserving of a small portion of the financial assistance that the distillery is seeking from the local government.
In the report, submitted to the Historic Preservation Board, Kayla Sintz, City Hall’s architect, recommends the whiskey maker receive a grant for $11,000. The Historic Preservation Board, which oversees the popular Old Town grant program, is not bound by the recommendation.
The panel is scheduled to discuss the grant request at a meeting on Wednesday starting at 6 p.m. in Room 205 of the Park City Library and Education Center. A public hearing is scheduled. A decision could be made at the meeting.
In her report, Sintz wrote providing a grant will be “contributing to the ongoing preservation of a historically significant building in Park City.” The grant would be matched by High West, which says renovating what is widely known as the historic Watts property close to the bottom of the Town Lift will cost $4.3 million.
The $11,000 recommendation equals the amount City Hall provided High West in a first round of assistance, through an economic-development grant meant to help the distillery move equipment from Salt Lake City to the Old Town site.
The recommendation amount is also in line with many of the Old Town grants that have been awarded in recent years. The largest grant ever awarded through the program was $50,000.
High West had outlined $712,699 in work at the site that it contended was eligible for Old Town grant money. Sintz later cut that figure down to $675,534 that is eligible for assistance, with carpentry work accounting for the largest portion.
City Hall, however, only has approximately $82,000 in the accounts that fund the Old Town grants, according to Sintz.
The Historic Preservation Board earlier in August agreed to consider the grant request even though High West submitted its application months after the work had commenced. The grant requests are typically heard beforehand.
High West must win ‘Yea’ votes from a majority of the seven-person Historic Preservation Board. Only six of the members have been attending meetings recently.
At the meeting earlier in August, Puggy Holmgren, an outgoing member of the panel, said she opposes the grant request. Holmgren’s final meeting will likely be on Wednesday, the day before the Park City Council is scheduled to appoint three new Historic Preservation Board members and reappoint another member.
Holmgren, who is the panel’s vice chair and is expected to preside at Wednesday’s meeting, declined to discuss the funding recommendation. She has said previously she is unhappy with the timeline High West followed in its grant request. Holmgren holds a vote.
David Perkins, the distillery owner, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment. He has previously said the price tag of the work at the site has soared past what had been anticipated. Perkins said he originally forecast spending $3.3 million to turn the property, which was purchased from City Hall, into the distillery. He plans to open the distillery in September.
Without assistance from City Hall, Perkins has said he would need to reduce his landscaping budget and there would be less money for marketing. He has said he hopes for “as much as they’re willing to give us,” but he understood City Hall does not have enough money left in the program to fund entire request.
The grant program dates to the 1980s and it has helped fund numerous improvements to historic houses and other buildings in the neighborhood. City Hall leaders started the program in an attempt to spur improvements during a time when there was little private-sector investment in Old Town.
Grant requests normally are not as closely watched as the High West application has been, with the whiskey maker’s bid for funding generating chatter on the Internet and at least two opposition letters to City Hall.
In the most recent letter, a husband and wife who own a Main Street store said they oppose more City Hall funding for High West even as they support the distillery’s opening. Bing and Vickie Crosby, who own Crosby Collection, said in the letter City Hall’s normal timeline should be followed when seeking a grant.
“We don’t mind saying it would rankle us a lot if someone who has long been aware of the deadline for submission of grant requests were given an exemption,” the letter says.