Harvest is a little piece of home for restaurateur Emma Worsley.

“It was really created from missing what we were using to having at home, so we created it here,” she said.

“In Australia, breakfast time is a meal, and people go out and have breakfast all the time, and it’s not just something you do to start the day,” she added.

Food

The favorite dish of both the owner and manager is the Buddha bowl, a dish of brown rice, butternut pumpkin puree, oven roasted tomatoes, fermented cabbage, pickled onions, hard boiled egg, herb ricotta, avocado, herb salad, seeds, nuts and miso ginger dressing. Harvest manager Karen Mertens called it a “good, fill-you-up kind of meal.”

“I think Park City has been craving healthier foods [especially for breakfast and lunch],” Mertens said.

The most popular dish is the smashed avocado on toasted sourdough bread, served with a poached egg, she added.

Sourcing locally was an important condition when Worsley and co-owner/chef Carlo Campana put together the original menu. The coffee is from Hugo Coffee and the hot chocolate from Ritual Chocolate, both Park City-based businesses. The cafe uses produce from Copper Moose Farm as much as possible, and bread from Eva’s Bakery on the Wasatch Front.

Allowing the food to stand on its own without adding artificial ingredients, sugar or other additives was another requirement of the menu, she added.

Coffee

The emphasis on coffee also stems out of Worsley’s Australian passions.

“Australia tends to be one of the innovators of what’s going on [in coffee],” she said. “It’s very, very hard in Australia to actually get a bad coffee.”

“If you’re going to have one coffee a day, it better be a good coffee,” she said.

“It’s a pretty basic coffee menu,” said Mertens, noting that fancy drinks from chains are not part of what the cafe offers, because Harvest concentrates on the heart of the espresso drinks, lattes or flat whites. In Australia, even drip coffee is not as popular as in America, and Harvest follows that preference, according to Worsley.

People

The community table, a long, tall table in the middle of the dining floor with tall chairs for small groups to join together, as well as individual tables spaced closely together, is also part of the Australian model for the cafe. Diners get to know their neighbors quickly, said Worsley.

“One of the nice things about traveling is talking to other people when you go to a new place, particularly someone who’s local,” she said, “You get a little bit of information of things to do, good places to go, etc. We really wanted to encourage that sense of community and connection.”

“People like the vibe. It’s loud and bustling,” Mertens said. “I’ve got some people who are coming to volunteer their time for Sundance [Film Festival] who love it so much.”

Park City residents have discovered Harvest, and while they may visit a little more often in the off season, the location at the bottom of Main Street helps draw some who might otherwise avoid the lively bustle of Old Town during the tourist season, according to Mertens.

The sense of community ranks high on the list of Worsley’s favorite things about the year-old restaurant.

“The community of like-minded people who want to eat healthy, start the day well and enjoy what there is out there in Park City,” Worsley said.

Harvest is located in the Rio Grande building, 820 Park Avenue. They serve the full menu seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, call them at (435) 604-0463 or log on to harvestparkcity.com.

The post A little Down Under in Park City appeared first on Park Record.

Emerson Oliveira may have been programmed to become a restaurant owner.

“My mom and dad, they taught me a lot about food when I was a child [in Brazil.] My dad would take me to the market, and my mom cooks incredibly good food,” he said.

He didn’t start his adulthood as a chef or waiter, however. His foray into the restaurant industry came after he earned a degree in computer science, and he came in to set up point of sale systems in restaurants.

Real world know-how helped him do his job, and Oliveira spent several years working all areas of local restaurants, on the dining room floor and in the kitchen.

“You gotta have a real knowledge of how the restaurant business works in order to make the system functional. I needed to know how everything works in the front of the house to the back of the house,” he said.

The connections he made during that time put him on a different level.

“It was an opportunity [that brought me in as a restaurant owner]… the place became vacant in 2008. We started a conversation with the brothers. Mike Sweeney was the first one to approach me, and we figured out this was an opportunity to do my own thing,” he said. “We built a relationship and the opportunity came in and we decided to jump in and do it.”

Oliveira began The Bridge, named after its location next to the ski bridge by the Town Lift, with friends, but runs the restaurant with his wife Juliana Klein now, and will celebrate The Bridge’s 10th anniversary in 2018.

Ten years has been full of new learning experiences, said Olveira.

“At the start, you put your passion and heart in it when you try to run a business, and you start knowing more as you’re in it,” he said. “I keep learning.”

Seasonal income and stretching earnings over the offseason offered a significant learning curve, as well as broadening into weddings, corporate events, and outdoor summer dining. The Town Lift Plaza next to the restaurant has been key to holding bigger events on site.

The Bridge offers comfort, casual fare with a Brazilian twist. The entire menu – every breakfast, lunch and dinner dish – are available the entire day.

His mother can cook everything perfectly without tasting it, and Oliveira is lucky to be able to do that as well. Going to the market with his father every week has helped him work with vendors now.

His Brazilian upbringing has influenced many dishes on the menu: from steak and fries with chimichurri sauce and a fried egg to moqueca baiana, a Brazilian fish stew of white fish, shrimp, mussels and baby clams simmered in a coconut milk and palm oil broth.

And then there’s the eggs. So many eggs. The two-egg breakfast and brazuca omelets are the two best sellers on the menu said Oliveira. With breakfast offered all day long, pancakes, French toast and, of course, omelets come out of the kitchen from open until close.

This winter, The Bridge will experiment more with dinner dishes in addition to the returning dishes. The restaurant can see up to 600 diners on a busy peak day, and it’s not unusual for some visitors to come for multiple meals on the same day, Oliveira said.

The restaurant industry has kept him busy enough to lose his computer programming savvy, and now he has to rely on others to help him with new systems.

“I became a bad user of new technology,” he said, laughing.

But he has no regrets.

The Bridge Cafe and Grill is located at the Town Lift Plaza, 825 Main Street in Park City.

The restaurant is open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

For more information and reservations, call 435-658-5451 or visit thebridgecafeandgrill.com.

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For Jeff Ward and Lisa Cilva Ward, running the Silver Star Café in Thaynes Canyon is almost a replication of their first dates as a couple about 30 years ago.

“Our dates were planning a meal, pulling the recipes the marinades the sauces and fanning everything out, deciding what we were going to do, doing a grocery list, shopping, going to the wine store to pick the perfect bottle of wine, coming back, cooking for two hours, sitting down to a great meal and then sitting outside listening to jazz,” Lisa recalled. “I remember thinking this is the perfect evening.”

Recreating those dates was not the original plan for the restaurant, however, and in fact, the business was originally Jeff’s alone, while Lisa continued with her full-time marketing and public relations company and as co-director of Leadership Park City.

“We didn’t start out [wanting a mom and pop restaurant,]” said Jeff. “Coming off of Main Street for 20 years, I decided we needed to do something that’s anonymous; that’s just a business that just runs itself, and it doesn’t matter who the chef is, or who is running the business. And we end up doing something that’s the exact opposite.”

“It’s so personal to us,” added Lisa

Authenticity, value and being local-centric are the pillars in the success of the restaurant, according to Jeff. In 2010, when the Wards took over the restaurant, the economy was still in a slump, and diners were looking for places “where they wouldn’t be irrelevant,” he said.

Being married and working together has been a fortunate blend of talents.

“We’re such good friends, and we’re so supportive of each other,” Lisa said.” The work is so hard and so demanding, that it’s really nice to look up during the day and have a little eye contact and then get back to work.”

Jeff added, “We have mutual respect for each other, and I can be very process oriented and Lisa’s very good at pulling me out and taking a broader and human side. We respect each others skills.”

Stemming from their decision to not be an anonymous business, as well as its American roots cuisine, Silver Star Café has been featured in regional and national publications, and in 2014, was featured on the ‘Cross Country Comfort Food’ episode of “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives with Guy Fieri.”

The experience has drawn fans of the show to travel to try the café pork osso bucco and vegetarian wild mushroom stroganoff featured on “Triple D,” the show’s nickname, despite not being a diner, drive-in or dive. The show has expanded its focus (although not its name) over the years to include mom and pop restaurants, Jeff said.

Chef David Bible cooking the crispy pork belly represents the Café on the episode and part of the planning process of the menu. The Wards hire regional and local musicians, occasionally nationally known, to play Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. The photography on the walls is from Lisa’s mother and her brother helped renovate the interior.

All their kids are foodies and love good music, said Lisa, and now one son and a nephew work as managers at Silver Star.

Putting everything they have and are into the restaurant, instead of creating a faceless, reproducible business, has brought in one unexpected benefit not included in any business plans.

“We get a lot of hugs,” said Jeff.

Silver Star Café is located at 1825 Three Kings Drive in Park City, in the Silver Star development. Open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., apres ski 3-4:30 p.m..and 5:30 to 10 p.m. for dinner Monday through Friday. The restaurant is open for brunch Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., apres ski from 3-4:30 p.m. and dinner from 5:30-10 p.m. on Saturday and 5:30-9 p.m. on Sunday. For more information, call 435-655-3456 or visit thesilverstarcafe.com. To see the Silver Star Cafe segment on “Diners, Drive-in and Dives,” visit foodnetwork.com.

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Part market, part café, Riverhorse Provisions brings another facet of the Riverhorse name and executive chef Seth Adams’s vision to Main Street. The cozy space occupying two floors of the renovated and historic Imperial Hotel offers a full menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as snacks, fresh produce and gourmet groceries to either enjoy on-site or take home to cook and eat.

“A lot of visitors need this kind of food, because they don’t have a full pantry in their lodging,” Lee Ellenburg said. He’s recently come on board as the director of operations for Riverhorse Hospitality, the umbrella company for Riverhorse’s growing brand. He also oversees the front end of Provisions.

While Main Street has a generous helping of sit-down restaurants, coffee shops, and take out opportunities, Provisions’ niche lies the in-between: a blend of deli salads, desserts, and specialty items served next to meals partially cooked, cooled, and ready to be finished at home.

Chef Adams and his team created the menu at Provisions to reflect and expand the eclectic American cuisine that helped build flagship restaurant Riverhorse on Main’s reputation.

Breakfast dishes, for example, include polenta French toast with maple cream and a breakfast wrap with house-made sausage, farm fresh eggs, cheddar and pico de gallo wrapped in a spinach tortilla. Lunch choices include Bison burger, braised pork belly BLT and an enthusiastic staff favorite: fish tacos.

During the warmer months, Provisions also created picnic baskets and picnic lunches for those wanting something ready to eat outdoors. Choices with baskets varied between cheeses, fruit and charcuterie, a seafood sampler and baby back ribs.

“The DNA of the kitchen at Riverhorse on Main has made it so successful here the last six months. The chefs are passionate about their work; they’re excited about their work,” said Ellenburg.

And although the shelves do have prepackaged items such as spreads, crackers, chips and even an eye-catching apple drinking vinegar, the popularity of the house-made foods has been the market’s early success, Ellenburg said.

Provisions has evolved to provide more cooked and partially finished foods over the nine months it has been open. The ultimate goal is to stock the market with about 75 percent Riverhorse-created foods, Ellenburg said.

And even though customers can stand at the deli counter and look directly into the activity of the kitchen, there’s an important part they may not see: the culture of the business.

“In this business, when you see the food come out in a consistent basis, and the service is at the level it is, then whoever is running that place has their act together. [The Riverhorse on Main] is the most professional kitchen I’ve ever witnessed,” Ellenburg said.

Ellenburg says he shares Adams’ philosophy and desire to have Riverhorse Provisions operate at the same level as the main restaurant.

“They (staff at Riverhorse on Main) have been nailing it for a decade, and Seth is due all that credit,” he added.

Current and future plans

Ellenburg came on board earlier this year to help Adams and his business partner Dave Spence expand the reach of the umbrella company Riverhorse Hospitality. Provisions becomes the next step in the company’s growth, as well as the rental and event space directly above in the Imperial Hotel.

The company is creating a production kitchen in the Silver Creek area, near the Summit County Justice Center, with a possible small retail outlet to serve the growing population in that corner of the county.

Riverhorse Provisions is open seven days a week, from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 221 Main Street in Park City. For more information, contact them at (435) 649-0799 or visit their website.

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Sitting down with Adolph Imboden, owner and chef of Adolph’s Restaurant, is spending time with a Park City icon, one that has built a successful life in the mountains.

Imboden’s passion for his life’s work and play comes out in his tone as well as his enthusiasm.

“In the wintertime, if there’s a nice day, I can’t wait to get out there and ski, and I can’t wait to come back here, listen to who has made reservations. And I can’t wait at night to talk to people, especially after I ski, I feel twice as good. I love all of my challenges just as much, he said.

The eponymous restaurant has served Park City for 40 years, and in its current location on Kearns Boulevard for 20. But the current Adolph’s seems to be only the middle of Imboden’s story. The restauranteur came to Park City in 1971, after earning his culinary degree in his native Switzerland and working in a kitchen in Vail, Colorado. And he still talks about future plans to bottle his famous salad dressing, mentor tomorrow’s chefs and execute several other projects.

“I don’t think they’d let me close Adolph’s!” Imboden said with a grin about his loyal clientele and friends. “I don’t know what I would do either, not coming in here and I see some of the locals and talk about the day of skiing or whatever it is. For me, I’d be probably quite bored if I didn’t do some of these things still,” he said.

When he opened his first restaurant in Park City, Adolph’s White Haus from 1974 to 1977, it was a small Swiss-themed restaurant on Park Ave., one of the few fine dining places in the area.

“I started my own menu; some specials I still have on the menu today,” he said.

Adolph’s is still known for its steak sandwiches at the bar, medallions of elk or venison, steak Diane, and of course, its cheese fondue, which Imboden insists on making with imported Swiss cheeses and the traditional recipe.

He approaches skiing, his parallel passion, with the same ferocity. He raced the USSA Alpine Masters competition for years. “When racing, I never raced just to go race. I always wanted to be good, fast and win, possibly. You gotta give it all,” he said.

A hip replacement ended the competitive days, but he still skis, and he still goes fast, living up to his reputation. Maybe because he wasn’t able to compete growing up, he has always had a tendency to ski fast and on the fall line, something that got his pass pulled a couple years ago.

“The ski patrol couldn’t catch me because I was in a hurry,” he said. He did eventually get his pass back.

Imboden’s restaurant blends his passions as well, showcasing photographs and posters featuring Olympians, skiers past and present. Imboden and Adolph’s are magnets for professional and recreational skiers. Every photograph on the wall holds a story behind it, Imboden said.

“The love of all that keeps me going and I think it always will,” he said.

“Someday we will have a last supper at Adolph’s, but that’s still a few years away,” he said. In the meantime, he plans to stay involved with day-to-day operations, greeting guests at their tables, keeping an eye on the line and, of course, making his famous fondue.

Adolph’s Restaurant is open for dinner, seven days a week, at 1500 Kearns Boulevard. For more information, (435) 649-7177 and adolphsrestaurantparkcity.com.

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Thursday evening, the Park City Council unanimously voted to accept a fee amendment on parking and meter rates, going into effect Dec. 15, 2017. The proposed updates support the upcoming rollout of the city’s demand-based parking technology program, which also begins in December.

The new rates would add fees to the Flag Pole lot, Bob Wells Plaza, China Bridge parking structure, and North Marsac lot during certain times of the day. China Bridge, however, would lose its six-hour time limit.

The fees associated with each parking lot vary depending on time of day and year. During peak seasons, for example, parking on Main Street between 5 p.m. and midnight, will cost $3 to $4 per hour, with a three-hour time limit. At the same time and season, China Bridge will offer the first hour free, before also charging $3 to $4 per hour with no time limit.

During the public hearing, one Main Street business owner voiced strong opposition to adding more paid parking to Old Town.

“I have problems with this across the board … These increases are ridiculous,” Main Street accounting service owner Mary Ann Cirino said.

“You’re paying three to four dollars to park [on Main Street/Swede Alley parking lots/China Bridge]? … If ultimately rolled out with these [fees], it’s going to hurt businesses, and it’s going to hurt everybody… I think it’s a slap in the face for the tourists, especially if they get ambushed,” she said.

Cirino said that businesses and employees will feel the hit if they park in Old Town, even during daytime hours, when parking in China Bridge is still free.

“It’s not helping anybody that’s an employer or employee,” she said. “I am still confounded as to why there is such a hard, hard push to make this so financially difficult for so many people, tourists and day-trippers included.

“It’s at a point I am thinking of coming off of Main Street, and moving my business, because I do not want to deal with it,” she added.

Business owner Mike Sweeney also spoke during public comments with a different point of view. “We all know that this situation is going to evolve and you gotta start someplace,” he said calling the city staff’s work a “good faith effort.”

“We all understand that it costs money to work on Main Street, and if we’re paid and compensated for that, then we can afford to work on the street. And if we can’t, we’re going to move off the street,” he added.

Ticket woes

The city has more than $270,000 in unpaid parking tickets currently, in part because it has been the city’s stance not to take vehicle owners to collections, and handing out citations has been inconsistent, according to Kenzie Coulson, Parking & Fleet Administrative Supervisor.

Part of the contract with consultants Dixon Resources Unlimited for the complete parking management program, includes collecting fines and consistent ticketing in the new phase of operations, said Coulson. The goal of ticketing parking violators will be to provide customer service by issuing a warning for first-time offenders, but have a system to catch and fine repeat offenders, with the ultimate goal of encouraging compliance.

Employee parking

Employees of Main Street businesses, especially evening and night-shift employees, will be encouraged to park for free away from Main Street in the triangle-shaped lot in Bonanza Park, now known as the Homestake Parking Lot. Shuttles arriving in 10-minute intervals and a guaranteed ride to the lot for employees who work until early morning hours aim to move employee cars out of the crowded lots in Old Town. Daytime employees still have several parking options in China Bridge, North Marsac, Sandridge, Flag Pole and Bob Wells Plaza for free until 5 p.m.

The “Green Dot” parking pass, used by some Main Street business employees, will be eliminated in the December rollout. The city will increase the number of Blue Square passes for business owners to 120, allowing parking in China Bridge with no time limit. The price will increase from $300 to $400.

Council member Andy Beerman remembers when parking restrictions began, in response to employees abusing the system by parking where business owners hoped customers would park. Parking was dropped in like a sledgehammer, Beerman said, and there were not mitigating programs to help employees find alternatives. That did end up hurting certain businesses on the street, he said.

This proposal, however, was done with “a scalpel” said Beerman, and in concert with a suite of tools employees didn’t have before. “Not the least of which is going to be the park and ride at the Homeastake lot. We have our e-bikes people can use now and the Electric Express program. I think it’s much more sensitive to [employee] uses.”

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As recently as the July 13 Park City Council meeting, a citizen came before the council to complain about noise and the confusion that seemed to result in enforcing the city’s noise ordinance.

Wednesday, July 26, the Park City Planning Commission will hear a staff report, proposing changes to the city’s noise ordinance.

Changes to the code include focusing the parameters, increasing enforcement of noise violations, and an opportunity to educate the public. If adopted, enforcement can escalate to criminal or administrative citations for blatant or repeat offenses.

The impetus for the review was part of a general trend across the country to define and include specifics in noise ordinances, said Michelle Downard, Deputy Chief Building Official for the city. “In the past it was very common practice to have verbiage along the lines of ‘clearly audible’ and things like that without really defining it and explaining it more than that, which generally speaking can be a little arbitrary,” she said.

From Jan. 1 through July 21, 2017 there have been 141 reported instances of disturbing the peace, 15 percent lower than the same time period last year. Downard says she doesn’t expect the new rule to influence those numbers.

“We just want to make sure that people are aware of it, that they don’t have any questions or concerns that haven’t been addressed,” she said. “We wanted people to understand what is being changed so they didn’t think everything would look different or enforcement would look different on an ongoing basis.”

One of the definitions that has been refined is “excessive and unusually loud” noise. As the code currently reads, 65 decibels is the upper limit. In the proposed changes, 55 decibels is the upper limit during the day in a residential area and 50 decibels between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. In commercial areas, the limits are 65 and 60 decibels, respectively.

Fifty decibels is half as loud as sixty decibels. As a reference, 50 dB is the noise level equivalent of a refrigerator, 60 dB equals a sewing machine and 70 dB is akin to a coffee grinder.

Park City Police Department officers and staff from the building department are the departments enforcing the code, and the staff recommends a three-month pilot program to education both city employees and residents of the changes.

The upcoming noise ordinance changes will be on the Park City Planning Commission’s agenda during the July 26 meeting. The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. at the City Council chambers.

This is the first chance for the public to comment on the changes. The proposed ordinance will go before the Park City Council in August.

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It’s a landmark, a convenience, a place that visitors and residents depend on, and soon, it may become a piece of Park City history.

With the redevelopment of a 5.25-acre parcel of Bonanza Park, dubbed Bonanza Park East, the Maverik gas station will have to move or move out of town. The latter is not an option either side favors.

Aaron Simpson, Vice President of Marketing at Maverik would rather go bigger than go away. “It’s been a great location for us, despite being one of our smaller stores … We would have loved to have built a bigger store there … We would love to have two stores up there,” he told The Park Record in a telephone interview this week.

Park City Planning Director Bruce Erickson sees the gas station, which has stood in one form or another on that corner for almost 40 years, as a community need.

“I think it’s very important [to have a second gas station in town.] It’s part of the way we live, and the convenience supports our construction industry and the kids from the schools … We have several thousand people in town every single day. And one gas station in the city limits and the next one six miles away is not particularly… it makes me nervous,” he said.

Park City Manager Diane Foster also see a second gas station wuthin the city as an important service, despite the city’s push for electric vehicles in its own fleet.

“We have a strong preference for keeping it in town if we can. We’re not going to go to an electric vehicle infrastructure fast enough. Because of the timeline, we’re probably in the 2019-2020 timeframe of when Maverik would move,” Foster said.

All the businesses on the parcel have been aware of some change coming to the area for a while.

“They’ve all had their leases… changed to short-term leases by Mark J. Fischer [one of the property owners of Bonanza Park East], because Mark has an application in and he’s been going through the planning process… They’ll probably stay on the property longer with the city,” she said.

The purchase agreement between Park City Municipal Corp. and Bonanza Park, LLC, JPS Nevada, LLC and Maverik Park City, LLC notes in several passages that the property is being purchased “as is.” Fifty thousand dollars of the $19.5 million purchase price will be held in an environmental escrow account for remediation and contaminated materials costs, but any additional costs would be the responsibility of the city.

According to Nate Rockwood, Capital, Debts and Grants Budget Manager for Park City Municipal, the city is currently performing a due diligence that is expected to find any issues, challenges or problems with the land, buildings and/or business leases. If soil remediation or any other issues are cost-prohibitive, the city has two choices: absorb the costs above $50,000 or pull out of the deal, he said.

Since underground parking has been part of the city’s plan for redevelopment, the cost of removing soil is already budgeted into expected costs, he added.

A conceptual rendering of the area by the city outlines the sale of just over one acre to the Sundance Institute, which would include the property Maverik currently leases.

Passing the remediation costs on to future property land buyers, Sundance and the Kimball Art Center, is not an option, Rockwood said. The letters of intent promise that both organizations will purchase property with “clean soil” from the city.

The due diligence period, which lasts until October 31, 2017, includes testing multiple soil samples from throughout the parcel.

“We have the due diligence period to figure out what those costs would be. If we found something that was totally prohibitive to developing the site from a cost standpoint, we would have to reevaluate what’s there,” he said. “But preliminary findings don’t indicate that.”

The council voted Thursday to approve the $19.5 millionpurchase agreement and continue on the path to creating a new arts and cultural district in Bonanza Park East. The council also unanimously accepted the letters of intent between the city and Sundance Institute and the Kimball Arts Center, as well as implementing a 1 percent Municipal Transient Room Tax beginning January 1, 2018.

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The Park City Council voted Thursday to approve the purchase 5.25 acres in Bonanza Park East to continue creating a new arts and cultural district. The council also unanimously accepted letters of intent between the city and Sundance Institute, and the city and Kimball Arts Center, outlining their roles as partners in the project. The council also approved a 1 percent Municipal Transient Room Tax beginning Jan. 1, 2018.

Comments from the general public were overwhelmingly in support of every aspect of the proposed arts and culture district, with representatives from Sundance Institute, Kimball Arts Center, Park City Film Series, and Summit County Arts Council speaking, as well as two students involved with the Kimball Art Center’s Young Artists Academy.

The area being purchased includes all land bordered between Kearns Boulevard, Bonanza Drive, Munchkin Road and Woodbine Way. The city had also recently purchased a parking lot south of The Yard, recently named the Homestake Parking Lot, which will be included in the redevelopment plans.

According to the staff report, the new arts and cultural district will include proposed new homes for Sundance Institute and Kimball Arts Center, a shared-space building for arts and culture-related nonprofits, a transit hub, parking, retail, dining, and office space, plaza space, and nearby affordable housing.

Council member Nann Worel was enthusiastic about the plans and partnerships for the new district.

“When the opportunity first came to us, I was concerned about the short timeline and the lack of public process because that’s really important… I’m comfortable that as we move into the Master Planning Development process, that there’s going to be numerous opportunities for the entire community to become involved,” she said.

Council member Tim Henney summarized his support for the project: “This has been an ongoing process for quite a while, and this area is up for redevelopment … what we have the opportunity to do by making this a government project is we unplug the profit motive that drives the private sector model, and we plug in community benefit.”

One concern that has consistently arisen throughout the process is the 1 percent Municipal Transient Room Tax that would be leveraged on visitors staying overnight in town to help the city cover the parcel’s $19.5 million price tag.

The tax would be in addition to Summit County’s current 3 percent transient room tax and a new 0.32 percent tax from the state, also starting Jan. 1. The overall 4.32 percent transient room tax is addition to Park City’s 8.45 percent sales tax, making the total lodging tax 12.77 percent. This is lower than Salt Lake City, Midway (both 12.92 percent), Denver (14.75 percent) and Mammoth (14.0 percent) but higher than Aspen (11.3 percent), Crested Butte (12.5 percent) and Vail (9.8 percent).

Chris Eggleton, former president of the Park City Chamber and Park City Area Lodging Association, addressed that concern during public comment.

Raising taxes is always a concern, he said, and the accelerated pace of the process so far has had its consequences. “Without the opportunity to discuss it with the constituency that ultimately is funding it, the lodging community, it becomes hard to accept that tax,” he said.

Members of the lodging community have expressed their concerns to the staff, council, and mayor since the proposed tax was announced, however. “In the end, my colleagues and I really look forward to working with each of you to collaborate on what the future of the project ends up becoming,” Eggleton said.

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Park City Municipal Corp.’s acquisition of the 1,350-acre Bonanza Flat area will need more than a signed title and the intention to leave the land undeveloped.

The parcel, which lies in Wasatch County, will need intensive research and a management plan with the change to public access, according to Heinrich Deter, PCMC Trails and Open Space Program Manager, and Wendy Fisher, director of Utah Open Lands, who presented a preliminary framing framework to the City Council on Thursday.

Fisher heads the process though Utah Open Lands’ holding of the conservation easement. ““I think one of the things I want to stress, right out of the gate is something that we’ve had consistent questions about from a public perspective. That is, what’s taking so long and what’s all this mean? And I want to stress that Utah Open Lands has been doing conservation easement work for 27 years and this is a pretty standard process.

“You can’t go out and draft a conservation easement until you really know, and fundamentally understand, some the intimate details of the land. Otherwise you don’t do a good job coming up with a forever protection.”

Staff provided a six-month timeline, encompassing the various aspects of creating a conservation easement, as well as community outreach, meetings with stakeholders, and active and passive management items.

“That land will be better cared for than it was under its previous owner,” Park City Manager Diane Foster said in an interview after the meeting.

Some of the deep details being looked at include: mine hazards and environmental concerns, flora and fauna surveys, land boundaries, land use studies of both wildlife and humans, adjacent landowners’ impact, and water-quality measuring.

City staff has already begun surveying the land, spending about four hours a week of staff time on the property That is expected to increase with a new Trails and Open Space Coordinator coming on board this week, according to the staff report.

Fisher explained the need for this exploration. “[With] the identification, we see what the historic and current use patterns are, and where there might be anticipated conservation value conflicts. Why? Because we want to address that and manage prohibited uses of the conservation easement, as well as the adaptive management plans to create a framework for how we’re going to create action items for dealing with those items.

“You can imagine, it’s everything from noxious weeds, to noxious weeds, to noxious weeds,” she added.

In addition to this research work, the property has a unique set of circumstances to deal with before an easement can be written.

“Anytime you have a landscape of this scale, and a landscape with so many different jurisdictional boundaries, i think you end up with more of a process…. The timeline in no way is different from any other timeline. The timeline is fairly aggressive, but one I think we can achieve,” said Fisher.

Stakeholders and advisors to the process were grouped into four categories: Technical Resource Advisors, including Mountain Trails Foundation and Summit Land Conservancy; Jurisdiction Agency, eight agencies including Salt Lake County, Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forrest and Metro Water; Drafting and Executive Team, including Mayor Jack Thomas, Council Member Andy Beerman and Fisher, and public input. City council, representing the landowner, will serve as the final decision making authority.

According to Foster, active study and maintenance of the land that has done so well left alone in the past is a necessary part of the city’s plan.

“It’s the one thing that we can do that will keep it the way it is right now,” she said. “Historically people were in the land, but it was trespassing,” because it was private land, she said. City management can bring about improvements, such as trailhead restrooms and official trails that direct human traffic, rather than having hikers bushwhack through brush, she said.

Public engagement and input is also a large part of the framework, Fischer said, with plans to include education pieces about the land, such as citizen-science events and dedicated website and social media sites about the parcel that will link from the Park City, Utah Open Lands and other websites.

One thing not on the plan, however, is to annex the lands into Park City proper, said Foster. Annexing land within another county is a long process that requires approval from the Lieutenant Governor’s office, so the city’s current plan is to act solely as the landowner.

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