The head of the state Military Installation Development Authority, which oversees a plan for a large commercial project in the Park City area, spoke with The Park Record this week about the highly anticipated proposal.
The terms of a memorandum of understanding between MIDA, Summit County and Park City could allow a developer to build 1.25 million square feet of commercial space along U.S. 40 near The Home Depot. The Air Force for years has sought a location for a hotel in the Park City area to replace its former Hill Haus lodge at Snowbasin. The project has grown to include a separate commercial center, which could create revenue to help offset the costs of providing room discounts to military men and women.
Critics of the proposal say 1.25 million square feet would be too large. But MIDA Executive Director Rick Mayfield said the commercial center would likely be much smaller.
“We’ve looked at the market and surely there’s not, in the near future anyway, a need for 1.25 million square feet of commercial,” Mayfield said in a telephone interview. “There is not a number right now that we’ve agreed on, but it’s substantially less than the 1.25.”
The military, which offers lower-priced vacation rentals for service members around the world, wants a hotel in Utah. But when Air Force officials proposed building the hotel at Quinn’s Junction, local leaders resisted, saying they would like the military to choose a more appropriate site, perhaps at one of the ski areas.
The military is exempt from zoning ordinances and local leaders are currently negotiating with MIDA, an entity formed to make it easier for the military to develop in Utah.
“We have made it so cumbersome for a developer with a number of meetings and hearings that they have to go through. Too often planning commissions or city councils table things and string a developer along to where he has to drop out of a project and give it up because it has taken so much time,” Mayfield said. “From a MIDA standpoint, we looked at how to speed it up so that we can get jobs and tax dollars as quick as possible without really compromising the community.”
He insisted that MIDA will not use its authority to run roughshod over local planning regulations.
“We’re not going to come in and just try to roll over everybody. That’s not our purpose,” Mayfield said. “I never want to be looked at as a way for a developer to cut through all the red tape, because our regulations in communities are there for a purpose.”
The terms of the agreement Park City and Summit County reached with MIDA last year allowed local officials to participate in the planning discussions. The city and county jointly own more than 100 acres near The Home Depot.
The agreement also obligates the city and county to sell the land for the military’s commercial development, according to Mayfield.
“They are surely contracted to do it They signed an MOU that they would do it,” he said. “My opinion is we’re all contracted under the MOU.”
Some tax revenue generated at the commercial center would subsidize room rates at a military hotel. A location for the military lodge has not been identified. But officials are considering a site near the Jordanelle Reservoir in Wasatch County.
Mayfield said MIDA is still negotiating the size of the commercial center with officials in Park City and Summit County.
“We’ve talked with the city and county at several meetings in the past few weeks trying to make this thing work for everybody,” he said. “We’ve tried to negotiate something that we think would do a couple of things. One would be to be a regional enough center to bring new shoppers into the area.”
The developer hopes the commercial area draws customers from Wyoming and eastern Utah.
“To make this work you’ve got to have new shoppers. That’s all there is to it,” Mayfield said. “We’ve got some pretty good numbers as far as anticipated shoppers that we think are going to Salt Lake and Provo, bypassing Park City.”
He declined to release the numbers on Thursday.
“Once we come to terms with the city and county I think people will see that it’s quite reasonable,” Mayfield explained.
Summit County Councilwoman Claudia McMullin said city and county officials have not agreed to sell the property near Home Depot. Both panels discussed the negotiations behind closed doors last week.
When reached Thursday, McMullin said she is not comfortable with the developer building 1.25 million square feet in Silver Creek.
“I’m not a developer, but what little I know, I just think that doesn’t sound feasible frankly,” McMullin said. “In a bad economy when you’ve got empty stores, I don’t understand how that could happen.”