Local Lift: Rhonda Sideris, Park City’s vacation rental queen

Rhonda Sideris poses in front of Park City Lodging's building in Prospector. Photo: Park City Lodging

PARK CITY, Utah. – Rhonda Sideris has been a Park City fixture since 1976, and for the few locals who have been around since then, they might know her as “Rockin’ Rhonda”. While the exact origins of the nickname are unknown – Sideris thinks she acquired it during one of her frequent vacations with friends to Ensenada, Mexico in the 1970s – its widely accepted meaning was, when “Rockin’ Rhonda’s” around, good times ensued.

Between 1976 and 1984 she found work as a bull rider in the now defunct Park City Rodeo, as a white water rafting guide on the Green and Colorado Rivers, and as the owner and manager of a successful restaurant and catering business. It wasn’t until 1984 that she started Park City Lodging, Inc. (then R&R Properties), which has since become a cornerstone of Park City small businesses and garnered three consecutive “Best of State” awards from Utah Business in the Vacation Rental category, from 2019 – 2021.

But Park City Lodging’s success is merely a reflection of Sideris’s abundant energy and willingness to adapt to a vacation market that has shifted many times during her 37 years in business. Most recently, the vacation rental market took a steep dive in March 2020 following both Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley Resort’s decisions to shut down early for the season in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. For businesses like Park City Lodging that rely upon the local tourism industry, the announcement gouged profits as it occurred shortly before the spring break holiday season. Faced with the choice of whether to enforce the company’s last minute cancellation policies, Sideris chose to return 100 percent of the money to those guests who canceled.

When asked how else Covid-19 impacted her business, Sideris said, “It really forced us to adapt technologically. We had been transitioning to key-less entry systems for our units for a long time, and this just forced the issue for all of our properties.”

An additional fallout of Covid-19 on Park City’s vacation rental market has been a reduction of inventory. People have moved from out of state and taken over short-term rental properties with long-term leases. Despite this obstacle, Park City Lodging has increased their inventory from 120 properties in December 2019 to 286 properties in July 2020. This was accomplished through both organic growth and the purchase of Snow Flower Property Management in October 2020.

And while Sideris has navigated the challenges of the last 16 months and come out ahead, the current landscape in which small businesses must operate in Park City has changed dramatically during her 37 years in operation. “One of the things that’s really difficult today is working with the city. The process for small businesses that don’t have the drive, or maybe the stubbornness, to get through the bureaucracy is really tough.” she explained. “There isn’t the sense that the community is being listened to (by city government) anymore. They do what they want to do. We need a small business advocate at the city.”

Sideris speaks, in part, about her experience constructing Park City Lodging’s newest office building, which is located in the Prospector neighborhood and was completed in July 2016. The project required some 8 years of back and forth with the City Planning Commission and the local home owners association before she received the final approval to break ground.

Today, that building has helped Park City Lodging to receive recognition for its sustainability efforts. Among the building’s sustainability features include 52 solar panels, four employee housing units, a rooftop garden and resource efficient commercial washing machines.

In addition to her responsibilities at Park City Lodging, Sideris serves as the Board President of the Main Street Business Alliance, where she helps find solutions to the complex issues faced by Main Street Businesses.

Park City Lodging is also a donor to many local nonprofits, including Utah Open Lands, Adopt-A-Native-Elder, Summit Land Conservancy and Recycle Utah among others.