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Treasure outranks Montage, St. Regis and others in square footage

Marriott’s MountainSide at Park City Mountain Resort is pegged at 317,892 square feet, according to the Park City Planning Department. It is another large project officials have compared to the proposed Treasure development.
Tanzi Propst/Park Record

The Treasure development proposed for a hillside overlooking Old Town is just a little larger, as measured by square feet, than the Montage Deer Valley.

Or, in comparison to other well-known projects, Treasure would be significantly larger than the square footages of the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Park City – The Yarrow and Marriott’s MountainSide combined.

The Park City Planning Department recently detailed the square footages of the Treasure proposal and a list of large hotels inside Park City. The numbers, included as an exhibit in a report to the Planning Commission, provide a clear rundown of the projects that, it seems, could be used by both the Treasure side and the opposition to bolster certain arguments.

The Planning Commission is in the early stages of a review of Treasure that is expected to last for months. Much of the discussion in recent weeks has centered on the square footage of the project. The exhibit compares Treasure to five other developments.

The exhibit pegs the Treasure proposal at 771,824 square feet, the largest of the projects detailed in the report. In comparison, the Montage Deer Valley is shown to be 736,013 square feet while none of the others break 400,000 square feet.

The projects, listed by square footage, include:

  • Treasure, 771,824 square feet
  • Montage Deer Valley, 736,013 square feet
  • St. Regis Deer Valley, 375,097 square feet
  • Marriott’s MountainSide, 317,892
  • DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Park City – The Yarrow, 249,268
  • Main & Sky, 73,734 square feet

    The Treasure figure does not include another 245,063 square feet for a garage, bringing the total to the just more than 1 million square feet that has been widely identified regarding Treasure. The numbers for the other projects also do not include the square footage of the garages. The Planning Department is expected to compile an updated exhibit with the garage numbers included.

    The amount of so-called back-of-house space or accessory space coupled with circulation space accounts for 40 percent of the Treasure square footage, according to the report. The back-of-house space includes storage areas for the hotel to use, places to store audio and visual equipment and a location for a trash compactor, as examples, while circulation space includes hallways, stairwells and staff-only corridors. Accessory space could include a ski-rental operation for hotel guests.

    The 40 percent figure is the most of all the projects, beating the Montage Deer Valley and St. Regis Deer Valley by just one percentage point each, the report shows.

    Neither the Planning Department nor the Planning Commission, though, has determined whether the square footage sought by Treasure meets an overall approval for the project secured in the 1980s.

    “It’s one tool that the Planning Commission can use in evaluating the size of the proposed building,” Bruce Erickson, the planning director at City Hall, said about the exhibit, explaining that the square footage is not necessarily representative of the volume of a building since that depends on the design.

    Critics have long decried the back-of-house or accessory space sought by the Treasure partnership, claiming the number is too high and adds significantly to the overall project. Pat Sweeney, who represents his family in the Treasure partnership, said some Treasure critics have “propagated that perception” of the project’s back-of-house or accessory space topping other projects by wide margins.

    The Planning Commission’s eventual decision about the square footage of Treasure will be one of the critical stands the panel takes. It will potentially have wide-ranging impacts on related topics like the Treasure height and the amount of traffic Treasure will be expected to attract. Treasure would appear as if it is 13 separate buildings. The project would be connected underground, though.

    The square footage outlined by the Treasure developers remains in dispute. The Planning Department has indicated the numbers “are not modest in scale and compatible to the surrounding area.” The Treasure side, though, contends the just more than 1 million square feet is within the range of the other projects and the space is needed to operate a high-end hotel.

    Sweeney said in an interview the Montage Deer Valley and the St. Regis Deer Valley are the developments City Hall detailed that are closest to the vision for Treasure.

    “Those are the two most similar projects in our mind. They’re basically hotel-condominium complexes that have all the type of amenities that are expected,” Sweeney said, adding that Treasure was always seen as a larger project than a hotel like DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Park City – The Yarrow.

    He said the Treasure partnership, consisting of the Sweeney family and a firm called Park City II, LLC, is researching the other projects in an effort to compare them to Treasure itself. He said the partnership wants to learn which edition of City Hall’s detailed development rules were in effect when the other projects were approved and wants to review Planning Department staff reports issued at the time.

    Sweeney said the Treasure side intends to draft a position statement centered on the exhibit containing the numbers. He said some of the square-footage categories, such as back-of-house or accessory, as well as circulation space, do not cut into the residential space allowed.

    “There’s a lot of things that don’t count. They add up,” he said.

    The Treasure tally

    The Treasure square-footage numbers, broken down into categories, include:

  • 393,911 square feet of residential space, or 51 percent
  • 173,210 square feet of common space or circulation space, or 22 percent
  • 136,301 square feet of so-called back-of-house space or space for accessory uses, or 18 percent
  • 52,275 square feet of commercial space, or 7 percent
  • 16,127 square feet of meeting space, or 2 percent

    The figures do not include another 245,063 square feet for a garage, bringing the total to the just more than 1 million square feet that has been widely attached to Treasure.

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