County outlines major asks as Dakota Pacific negotiations continue

The land for the Dakota Pacific development project sits to the west and south of the Skullcandy building. Photo: Dakota Pacific

The Summit County Council told Dakota Pacific they want a new transit center, structured parking for 1,500-2,000 cars, a civic plaza with ground-floor retail, a pedestrian bridge and potential future gondola connection

PARK CITY, Utah —During a Summit County Council work session April 4 with Dakota Pacific, county officials said they would accept 600 residential units – 100 more than they agreed to in February – but asked for major changes to Kimball Junction transit in exchange. 

It has been approximately six weeks since the last official discussions between the real estate developer and officials at Summit County as the effort to strike a balance between allowing the 1,216,000 square foot housing and business center development and ensuring community infrastructure enhancements continues.

The Summit County Council told Dakota Pacific they want a new transit center, structured parking for 1,500-2,000 cars, a civic plaza with ground-floor retail, a pedestrian bridge and potential future gondola connection if it lets Dakota Pacific build the housing and commercial units on the 50-acre parcel adjacent to the Skullcandy headquarters.

The county also outlined a land exchange whereby the county would trade the 6-acre Richins parcel for a similarly sized parcel currently owned by Dakota Pacific west of the Skullcandy building. The county would use the land for future county needs such as affordable housing and county buildings. The proposal also would require Dakota Pacific to use a 3.45 acre parcel they own to build out county-proposed developments and improvements in Kimball Junction. 

County Councilor Chris Robinson also said the county would offer a more flexible buildout timeline if Dakota Pacific agrees to keeping 50 percent of the residences affordable. Dakota Pacific was also asked to provide other community benefits such as senior services and childcare.

Dakota Pacific CEO Marc Stanworth cringed at the revised plan.

“We’ve been saying the same thing from day one, and that is, economics are tight,” Stanworth said. 

In a previous meeting, Stanworth said that it would be difficult to make the project work from an economic perspective with 500 market rate units, let alone 300. He added that the complexity of the county’s revisions would be a major challenge to work through. 

State laws would need to be changed in order to make the required alterations to the Resort Community Tax and Transient Room Tax to allow the development and UDOT would need to greatly accelerate plans to improve the left turning lanes on both Ute Blvd. and Olympic Parkway. Robinson said the request to accelerate the UDOT plan would be placed on the agenda in the first quarter of next year. 

Public opposition to the development has been estimated at nearly 94% according to a poll of TownLift readers.

The county council had tentatively proposed a public hearing for Apr 22, 2024, but setting a date for the public hearing was tabled after the County Council stated they believed Dakota Pacific would need more time to review the proposal. 

A date has not been set for negotiations to continue.