It’s been 179 days since Summit County and Dakota Pacific Real Estate agreed to pause the legal battle surrounding the Park City Tech Center land in Kimball Junction.
Third District Court Judge Richard Mrazik in December agreed to give the parties until June 8 to resolve the conflict, but they haven’t been able to reach an agreement yet. So Mrazik gave the development firm and county staff four more months.
The Summit County Attorney’s Office on May 30 filed an extension to suspend the legal proceedings until Oct. 8 to give the parties more time to work out the details.
Dakota Pacific and the Summit County Council started meeting regularly in January to go through specific details of the development application including transportation, traffic and density.
However, elements of the plan started to change when the County Council set stricter limits for the project, which included reducing the number of residences, establishing a phased buildout contingent on state and federal funding, and developing a public-private partnership.
Officials in April opted to move the conversations behind closed doors after years of public discussions to work out the complexities of the county’s revised request. Plan D would allow 600 residential units with half designated as affordable or attainable and a more flexible construction timeline if the developer also helps improve other land in the area.
County Councilor Canice Harte, who serves on the subcommittee with County Councilor Chris Robinson, said a public-private partnership is the main focus of the group. Officials want to create a new transit center, pedestrian promenade and other community connections around the existing Sheldon Richins building and transit center as well as the empty lot by the Park City Visitors Center.
The County Council on Wednesday approved up to $30 million in sales tax revenue bonds to purchase the nearby Skullcandy headquarters for municipal purposes, and the 7.38-acre lot could also be used to support the public-private partnership by creating more land connections.
“We continue to work together,” Harte said. “Those conversations are going well.”
Dakota Pacific agreed to extend the pause so the negotiations can continue. Summit County sued the development firm last March over Senate Bill 84, which attempted to take away local land use control in Kimball Junction.
The law could have forced the County Council to approve the previous proposal for a 727-unit mixed-use development. However, Mrazik ruled the Tech Center is not subject to the law. Dakota Pacific planned to appeal the decision and filed a countersuit in November.
The stay in litigation could be lifted by either party with a 14-day notice, but Harte doesn’t think that will happen unless the parties stop making progress.
Initial subcommittee meetings helped establish the framework for how the conversations would go. Now, Harte said, county staff are leading the discussions while members of the County Council are there for additional support. Key officials such as Transportation Planning Director Carl Miller and High Valley Transit Executive Director Caroline Rodriguez have been involved in the planning, too.
Dakota Pacific is represented by CEO Marc Stanworth and Director of Commercial Development Steve Borup.
The subcommittee isn’t working on a specific design. Instead, they’re focused on project concepts such as how many parking spaces would be needed to accommodate residents and visitors and the financial feasibility of a land swap.
Officials are no longer working under the timeline they established in January, meaning a vote on the project might not be held this year. Harte speculated it could take until the October deadline to come to an agreement regarding the public-private partnership piece.
He said the goal is to have a memorandum of understanding, a nonbinding agreement establishing how the parties will move forward. The subcommittee is not making any formal decisions. Once that’s in place, the conversations may return to the public eye.
However, Harte said some information may be daylighted at an upcoming County Council meeting.
“The conversations, as the public has known them, are different,” he said. “Everything is very different from what we know it to be.”
The county councilor was optimistic the two parties are moving in the same direction now. There’s a strong commitment to focusing on the community benefits of a public-private partnership and ensuring the details all align.
Harte said he feels positive about where the project is headed.