Snow Park redevelopment moves forward with City–Deer Valley parking agreement

A rendering of the Snow Park project at Deer Valley Resort. Photo: Deer Valley Resort

PARK CITY, Utah — Deer Valley Resort has cleared one of its last remaining hurdles in the multiyear effort to redevelop its Snow Park base area, following the Park City Council’s approval of a cost-sharing agreement for offsite parking this week.

The council voted Nov. 18 to formalize a partnership that allows both the city and the resort to contribute up to $15 million each toward no more than two transportation-related projects. The agreement is intended to ensure Deer Valley has adequate offsite parking before it replaces the Snow Park surface lots with a transit center, ski beach and new base village.

City officials say one of the likely projects is a transportation facility somewhere along S.R. 248, though the funding could also support new housing within city limits. The two possible locations that have been discussed are Richarsdon Flat and the Gordo property along SR 228. Park City will be responsible for proposing which projects move forward.

With the agreement now in place, Deer Valley can begin filing for permits for the first phase of redevelopment, which focuses on roads and a structured parking garage. The second phase — the buildings — will go through the city planning commission. Resort President and COO Todd Bennett told council the company is juggling work in East Village but remains focused on advancing Snow Park as resources become available.

During the meeting, Councilmember Jeremy Rubell pressed Deer Valley for more detail on how parking at Snow Park will change as part of the redevelopment.

“People want to know what we have today, what the future looks like, and how we’re mitigating traffic,” Rubell said.

Deer Valley planner Hannah Tyler explained that the current Snow Park area accommodates roughly 1,700 parking spaces on peak days, including street parking. Under the redevelopment approvals, she said, the resort will provide 1,361 day-skier stalls in the new system, along with 611 spaces dedicated to other uses such as commercial, residential, and event-center operations. The breakdown is part of the resort’s entitlements and tied to conditions approved earlier this year.

Deer Valley also sketched out how it plans to use an additional 30,000 square feet of support space outlined in earlier approvals — 15,000 square feet for maintenance operations and 15,000 for commercial uses at Silver Lake.

City staff and Deer Valley representatives explained that the added maintenance space is tied to future infrastructure such as a gondola and other resort assets, while the Silver Lake square footage is strictly for resort-related functions like kitchen expansion or added dining space.

“These uses are for resort operations only,” Tyler said. “They won’t result in new residential development.”

City Attorney Margaret Plane stepped in at the end of the discussion to clarify which elements were actually part of the Nov. 18 vote.

She emphasized that the parking counts, density allowances and other development details referenced during the meeting were approved previously as part of Deer Valley’s letter of intent, the partial right-of-way vacation ordinance, and the 13th Amended Master Planned Development.

“What you’re adopting tonight,” Plane told the council, “is the agreement that establishes the mechanics for how the city will receive and spend Deer Valley’s $15 million — which the city will match — for the offsite, regionally significant transportation facility. The other details were already adopted earlier this year.”

The offsite facility — expected to total around 2,000 spaces, with about 1,400 for guests and 600 for employees — is central to Deer Valley’s phased removal of on-mountain surface parking. The project will be financed through public infrastructure districts, or PIDs, which allow landowners to issue bonds backed by an additional property tax on the land inside district boundaries. Park City approved the Snow Park PID structure in March.

It is not yet known when demolition and construction work will begin at Snow Park, but the finalized agreement now allows Deer Valley to file the remaining paperwork with the Summit County Recorder’s Office and move forward with the next round of approvals.