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Show Park Record Thursday, March 26, 1987 Page A3 Summer tourism: It may be a key to Park City's future i n nrvrifr,rui by HEIDI WEST Record staff writer Editor's note- This is the final in a three-part series on the plans city and county leaders have for Summit County, Park City and its environs. This segment deals with ideas for attracting at-tracting summer tourists to Park City. Ci-ty. Selling Park City as a year-round resort is nothing less than the number one goal of the Park City Area ChamberBureau. It's a goal : U V- it,-' I r 1455, i Mtiu H ., -. ,! i wMm M p ri Fir ft : T A" iff'-j-.'-W. 3 K.,, v Chamber Executive Director Bill Cl-inger Cl-inger was given his first year here, and it's one he is serious about implementing. im-plementing. "We need to create a festive atmosphere at-mosphere year round," he says. "The county needs to diversify with events or businesses which complement comple-ment the ski industry." dinger is working particularly hard right now to, along with Mayor Hal Taylor and others, seduce the summer music camp Interlochen to test a branch in Park City. This, he says, will create that "arts atmosphere" in the summer sum-mer which has been successful in bringing br-inging tourism to these mountains in the past. The Arts Festival, Blue Grass Festival, Autumn Aloft, Taste of Park City, and a handful of other "events" have resulted in a few discrete tourist "swarms" to Park City during the summer, but the Chamber is focusing on something more like a steady stream of them. After all, says Clinger, those special events "draw attention to the community" and give it free publicity. publici-ty. Theoretically, the more people know about Park City, the more attractive at-tractive it becomes as a winter or summer tourist vacation spot. The proposed Jordanelle Reservoir Reser-voir will help in making the area a nice summer vacation spot, says Clinger. Cl-inger. "It puts a major body of water and recreation avenue within five minutes of Park City." Clinger notes that the "number one vacation draw" is the ocean. But, mountain lakes are "probably second best." In the short term, the ChamberBureau will try to pull its summer tourists from the Wasatch Front area to attend the events here, but eventually it would like to see real, live, summer vacationers who choose to spend a few days or a couple cou-ple weeks in town. Campgrounds along Jordanelle should help those who enjoy the outdoors or who are on a lower budget, and summer-long events like Interlochen should contribute con-tribute in snagging the destination vacationer, says Clinger. An integral part of the Chamber's plan to market Park City as a year-round year-round resort is to attract groups for seminars and meetings. "If they come for a three-day convention, we're hoping they'll stay three or four more days for fun," says Clinger. Cl-inger. One way to entice more groups to meet here is to establish a conven- Renovation of the old Carl Winters school is a target of many leaders. tion center, says Park City Councilman Coun-cilman Jim Santy. And, he thinks renovating the Carl Winters Middle School is a great place to start. "It has an auditorium which seats 510, and the classrooms could be made into meeting rooms," he says. Santy also notes the existing gymnasium floor could be used to seat more than 1,000 for banquets. Although Park City presently has private facilities for 500-plus sized convention meetings, seating or feeding 1,000 is a tougher problem. Santy thinks spending the $1 million renovating the school is estimated to cost is worth serious consideration, but he isn't sure residents feel the same. "It has the potential for bringing bring-ing lots of money into town," he notes. "It could be used for the arts, BYU courses, culinary arts, a hotel management center, teen center...", the list of possibilities goes on for the enthusiastic councilman. "But, we don't know whether people in town really want to spend that much money. We're waiting to see if there is public support for the idea." The ChamberBureau stresses conference space would have to complement the existing market, and not take business away from private companies offering facilities now. It does support renovating the school, but offers in addition to a convention center the ideas of turning turn-ing it into an Olympic training center, a small business incubator, or a sports medicine complex. To accompany the pulses of "festiveness" and give the conven-tioners conven-tioners something to do while they're ditching those more boring sessions, city and county leaders are hoping to create a number of year-round year-round tourist attractions. Two of those getting more attention than others are the extension of the Heber Creeper train into Park City and the ski Interconnect. The little train is planned to include in-clude dining cars and maybe give rise to a string of shops and commercial commer-cial development along its route. It would serve as an attraction for the summer destination visitor, as well as give the winter non-skier something fun to do, say planners. (See part 1 of this series, printed in the March 12 edition of the Park Record.) The interconnect is, in concept, something everyone seems to favor. Paraphrasing the report from the Governor's task force on the interconnect inter-connect idea, Clinger notes a tram or chairlift connecting Park City resorts to neighboring canyons would expand Park City's bed base and make the territory included into "the premier ski area." Santy perhaps best expresses the attitude that those who support the Interconnect are hoping non-skiers will adopt about their project. "I don't even ski," he laughs, "but I like to see the country. I could ride up and down the gondola ten times a year and still see something new." He switches from passenger to councilman coun-cilman and adds, "I would hope people peo-ple would come to this area to ride the Interconnect to others." But Summit County Commissioners Commis-sioners aren't so sure people will come to Park City to ride out on the interconnect. Although they support the idea of a connection in concept, Commissioner Jim Soter warns, "I think we have to be real careful about what kind of system we have coming out of the Salt Lake Valley." Both he and Commissioner Ron Robinson are concerned that a highspeed high-speed tram up from Salt Lake City would encourage skiers to sleep in the valley and not in Park City. Robinson even wonders if a tram from the valley isn't a little more feasible in the short term than the Interconnect itself. "With snowslides, limited parking and narrow nar-row roads, they might even get that before we get our Interconnect done," he said. But, they both agree "some kind of tramway would be great for summer sum-mer as well as winter. ' ' Ultimately, they want whatever Park City wants. "If Park City comes to us and says this is what we need, that's what we would have to support, because they're the experts," ex-perts," says Soter. Clinger agrees that Park City and Summit County have to coordinate their efforts. "We're all in this together," he says, "and in my opinion opi-nion we need to foster cooperation." Promoting year-round tourism is only one prong of a many-pronged attack on the economic sluggishness Summit County is experiencing now, but it is the one many feel is most important to the area's future financial finan-cial health. Says Santy, "We don't have industries. Tourists are our industry, in-dustry, and if we don't realize that, we're finished." 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