The Park City Engineer is working to get the third-party studies the Planning Commission said it needs before making a decision about the Kimball Special Event Center’s application. Melissa Allison has more.
Park City Engineer Nestor Gallow signed a proposal from a third-party engineering consultant to look at the traffic mitigations proposed by the Kimball applicant and make his own recommendations.
The city is paying for that service to ensure the report is done without any bias.
In addition to traffic, noise has been a major concern by the surrounding neighbors and Planning Director Bruce Erickson said Gallow has that covered as well.
“He’s also with a noise consultant out of Salt Lake City that’s very comfortable with doing event and noise transmission," Erickson said. "So we’ll have the information about whether or not the mitigation strategies are effective. We expect to see those two reports back in the next three or four weeks. Both parties are really responsive back to Nestor. So we expect to see them back and then we’ll see if we need to change any of our mitigation strategies.”
The planning department consults with several different departments when considering an application and that includes the special events, transit and transportation and police departments.
Erickson said they reached out to Officer Franco Libertini regarding noise and code enforcement as well as any concerns police may have about turning on Heber Ave. as well as Park Ave. and Heber Ave. and Main St.
“I don’t think any of us in planning understand 100 percent the implications of the safety bollards that would be installed during a festival," Erickson said. "So we wanted to make sure the police let us know if we had any issues. They reported back and said, ‘Yeah, we think we can manage the situation. Continue with the recommendations from the city engineer.’”
The applicant is hoping to open their special event space this year and Erickson said it’s still possible, they have a couple of options.
“They could withdraw their application and bring in an application for a restaurant and outdoor dining," Erickson said. "The special event space is going to process at the rate it’s going to process and the applicant has to respond and the appellants have to respond. L.L.Bean on the other hand, is a commercial activity on the first floor and if they get their certificate of occupancy for the building, L.L.Bean could probably get in on time.”
Park City Planning Director Bruce Erickson.
I’m Melissa Allison, KPCW News.