Upper Park Avenue Street Design
Park City, Utah 1998 – 2004
Park City was a silver-mining boom town from the 1890’s through the 1940’s, but fell on extremely hard times (it was once listed as a ghost town), before its rebirth as a ski resort over the last few decades.
Suburbs were built in the 1980’s to encourage economic development, but the trade-off was a dis-investment in the original town center – school buildings were abandoned and Main Street’s community center was sold.
We arrived in the early 90’s, to a street without storm-drains used as a service alley for Main Street commerce, even though zoning protected this largely intact neighborhood of historic homes.
In the absence of government interest, we first formed a neighborhood association to lobby city politicians to reinvest in the residential core, and then worked with the city to design a pedestrian- friendly street, rather than the suburban thruway first proposed.
Plunkett+Kuhr 