City Hall may someday consider parking a housing development on municipal land in Old Town.
An idea has emerged calling for officials to consider building a residential project on the land where the Sandridge parking lots are located. The lots are along Marsac Avenue south of the China Bridge garage and the Marsac Building. They are typically used by a variety of drivers, including people headed to nearby Main Street or the municipal offices at the Marsac Building, as well as people who live nearby. The lots are largely surrounded by residential streets in the southern reaches of Old Town.
A committee is considering the future of Main Street and concepts were presented to Mayor Nann Worel and the Park City Council this week. One of the notable concepts calls for housing on the Sandridge lots land. The materials described an interest in market-rate housing and housing for the workforce at the location. Details were not provided.
It appears the committee, with a focus on Main Street, considered the Sandridge lots in the context of adding full-time residents in the vicinity of the shopping, dining and entertainment strip. If there are more people living in Old Town, the thinking goes, Main Street businesses would benefit on a year-round basis.
“The committee consistently emphasized the challenge of remaining open and vibrant during the shoulder season. To that end, the consultant team proposed adding additional housing within the district in order to provide more present and stable demand base to the district,” the materials said.
The materials also said: “The Sandridge parcels provide a linear and continuous space where housing could be developed at a similar scale to existing homes in the area. These homes could be provided as a blend of market-rate and workforce housing depending on financial parameters that the City could create for partner developers.”
People who live or own properties in the area of the ground would likely express worries about traffic increases in tightly packed Old Town. They could also raise questions about the number of units the land could accommodate.
Main Street interests could express concerns about the loss of public parking in the Old Town core if a development were to ultimately remove the Sandridge stalls from the inventory.
Housing proponents, though, could see a project as well placed so close to Main Street and the bus lines that converge at the Old Town transit center.
“One of the many opportunities the Main Street Area Plan Committee is considering, at this early stage in this process, is whether the City’s land holdings in Old Town can be maximized to address multiple community needs — of which there are many including transportation, housing, and economic vibrancy, ” the municipal government said in a statement.
Park City leaders for decades have pressed housing as a municipal priority, arguing workforce or otherwise restricted housing increases socioeconomic diversity and reduces commuter traffic.