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Park City hotel teardown starts with brute force, power tools

A crew on Monday morning started to prepare the Star Hotel for demolition, tearing away the exterior layer of stucco on the Main Street building. The full demolition of the building could start by the end of March.
Tanzi Propst/Park Record

A crew on Monday morning started to prepare an old, decrepit Main Street hotel to be torn down, the initial steps in what will be an extraordinarily rare takedown of a building on the shopping, dining and entertainment strip.

The workers, using power and manual tools, spent time on Monday tearing away the exterior layer of stucco on the Main Street side of the Star Hotel. The stucco came off quickly while the workers used brute force to dislodge cement. Stonework was revealed in one section of the building as the workers removed the exterior layer.

The operation had been expected for several months with there seeming to be at one point the possibility of the work starting prior to the Sundance Film Festival in January. The work was delayed until after Sundance and the heavy snows that struck in February. The contractor, Brassey & Company, said on Monday the full demolition of the building could start by the end of March.



The Park City Building Department is overseeing the work while the Park City Planning Department is monitoring the teardown to ensure the workers comply with plans to preserve historic materials that would be used as the property is redeveloped. The foundation, made of rock, will be preserved and incorporated into a development, as an example.

“It can pretty much come down,” said Bruce Erickson, the planning director at City Hall.



Main Street will lose an old building as the Star Hotel is taken down, but City Hall officials determined the structure in unsafe. The Planning Department in early March indicated there was a potential of the roof collapsing inward under the weight of the snow and ice.

City Hall’s Old Town panel, the Historic Preservation Board, and the Park City Board of Adjustment previously voted to maintain the Star Hotel’s designation as a significant building as part of a municipal government-kept inventory of historic sites. Buildings with that designation cannot be torn down under most circumstances, but officials in the case of the Star Hotel agreed to allow the demolition based on the poor condition and the danger to the public.

The Star Hotel was incorporated into a small historic house decades ago. The project involves a redevelopment that includes a building that will appear to be a full restoration of the Star Hotel, the full restoration of the small historic house and a small addition.


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