There are houses and condominiums all around the site where the Racquet Club once stood and where the Park City Recreation Center is now being built.
But not one person from the public was to be found late Monday afternoon at a City Hall-hosted open house meant to provide information about a request by the municipality to slightly expand the construction hours at the site.
The two-hour open house, held at the Park City Library and Education Center, was a bust, with two City Hall staffers, a City Hall consultant and a representative from the firm building the Recreation Center chatting with each other while they waited for people to arrive. Nobody ever did in the two hours starting at 4:30 p.m.
City Hall-sponsored open houses usually draw crowds ranging from a handful of people to hundreds for the most popular ones. It is rare, though, for nobody to attend such an event.
The organizers of the Monday open house sent notices of the event to 175 people who own property within 300 feet of the Recreation Center site. The notices also included information about a Wednesday meeting of the Park City Planning Commission that will address the construction hours.
Officials are asking the Planning Commission to allow longer construction hours on Saturdays. The wet weather in the spring and early summer has caused delays at the site, and the construction team says the expanded hours are wanted to ensure that the work does not fall further behind.
City Hall has requested the Saturday construction hours be widened to between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. The construction restrictions at the site now allow work on Saturdays between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Park City’s project manager, Matt Twombly, has said the workers prefer to start earlier on Saturdays in order to finish their shifts earlier.
“I’m not sure. I think we’re hopeful,” Twombly said about the prospects of the Planning Commission approving the wider hours. “The positives outweigh the negatives in this case.”
The Planning Commission is prepared to consider the request at a Wednesday meeting. The meeting is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. in the Park City Council chambers at the Marsac Building. A public hearing is scheduled. City Hall staffers want the panel to consider approving the expanded hours. Construction restrictions were of note when the Planning Commission earlier approved the overall permit for the redo of the facility.
If the request if approved, the construction crews could start working the earlier hours as soon as this Saturday, Twombly said. He said he did not expect a large crowd for the Planning Commission meeting given the showing on Monday at the Library and Education Center event.
The construction crews are putting up the Recreation Center at the Little Kate Road site where the Racquet Club once stood. Most of the former building was demolished when the work started, and the skeleton of the new building has taken shape recently.
The Recreation Center will feature numerous upgrades in equipment and workout space as well as a series of environmental improvements. The Racquet Club was an aging facility, and City Hall had solid support from Parkites for the work.
The project is costing City Hall $10.5 million. It is anticipated to be complete in late November, several weeks behind schedule.
There had been little apparent public interest in the request for the longer construction hours prior to the Monday event.
A letter from someone who lives close to the site, delivered to the Planning Commission this week, though, is critical of the request. Michele Dieterich claims the contractor leading the work, Okland Construction, has allowed work earlier than it is permitted under the current restrictions.
“Please take into consideration the reason for the limitations. They have not changed. This is still a huge construction project in a quiet residential neighborhood. Okland has had both management and weather issues all of which should have been anticipated at least to some extent. If this is granted, what is next,” the letter from Dieterich said.