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Show Redevelopment agency gives final okay to parking project on upper Main Street by Christopher Smart The Park City Council acting as the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) gave final approval Jan. 17 to its Upper Main Street project, overruling overrul-ing a site-plan rejection by the planning commission. The project, to be located across Main Street from the Treasure Mountain Inn, will provide .168 parking spaces. .Thirty thousand "-square "-square feet of commercial spa"ce will be built above the parking structure by Newport Beach, California developer Taylor Grant . The RDA's original plan to develop the site ran aground in October when a soil survey revealed the parcel had been a dump. As excavation and foundation estimates soared, Grant asked for an additional $200,000 in expenses. However the RDA refused to sweeten the agreement, which said the RDA would provide the land and , $1.1 million in return for 150 parking spaces. In addition, according to the agreement, Grant would be permitted permit-ted to build the office and commercial space if he paid the RDA a lee of $525,000. The contract also stipulated the top of the southern end of the parking structure be left -.r;!i t;en plaza. -' The planning commission approv- ; ed the original site plan, giving its OK in the form of a height variance because the proposal came before it as a master plan development. As a matter of course, planning commission does not review plans in the historic district. In this case, however, the board reviewed the plans at the request of the RDA. However when the RDA refused to pick up the additional footings costs. Grant on Nov. 1 presented the RDA a new plan that would allow construction construc-tion of the project for the agreed-upon price. Because the soils deteriorate progressively south across the Main Street-Swede Alley parcel, Grant's architect Arthur Strock suggested to the RDA that the three planned levels of parking be stacked rather than terraced as was first proposed. Excavation and foundation costs could be held to the original estimate because building on the southernmost southern-most section of the parcel could be avoided, he said. The new plan, however, eliminates most of the originally-proposed plaza. According to planning commission chairman Cal Cowher, the revised site plan is inferior to the first because of the elimination of open space and the plaza. "If the elimination of the plaza is due simply to economics the RDA should be responsible to find another way to do it." In overruling the planning commission, com-mission, however, councilman Jim Doilney said, "Our job is to look at the overall picture, including economics eco-nomics ' He agreed with the planning commission that the first sile plan mat i hulttr, . . , . . The new plan adds 18 parking spaces to the original 150. It will also be built to the edge of the sidewalk rather than set back behind the plaza. The council added two stairways to the plan at its Jan. 17 work session and some additional brick work to the Swede Alley side of the parking structure. Grant plans to break ground on the project in May. |