Bonanza Park’s 5-Acre Site: Heights Come Down, Decision Clock Starts

If you live, own, or work near Kearns and Bonanza, the next six weeks matter more than the last nine years of visioning. On Aug. 26 commissioners generally favored shorter buildings. Next Wednesday they workshop it with no public comment. Oct. 14 is a public hearing and possible final action, not a done deal.

This is an update, not a recap. I already walked through what the Five-Acre Site could mean for Bonanza Park in June. Since then the buildings at the Bonanza Park 5-Acre Site came down, the commission still has not voted, and you now have two dates on the calendar.

On Wednesday, Aug. 26, Planning Commission held its third public hearing on the city-owned 5-Acre Site at the southwest corner of Kearns Boulevard and Bonanza Drive. KPCW reported the next day that commissioners generally favored the developer’s reduced heights. They remain split on gable pitch, a four-story exception on Munchkin, and parking.

Wednesday, Sept. 9, 5:30 p.m., Council Chambers at the Marsac Municipal Building, 445 Marsac Avenue: work session. You can sit in the room. You cannot speak that night. Comments go to planning@parkcity.gov. Wednesday, Oct. 14: public hearing and possible final action. A no or a continuance is still live. City Council still comes later. The project is in Planning Commission review. It is not approved and not under construction.

Marsac Municipal Building, 445 Marsac Avenue. Photograph by Don Ramey Logan; file City Hall Park City Utah photo Don Ramey Logan.jpg, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

What got shorter at the Bonanza Park 5-Acre Site

The city Planning page is the official scorecard. After seven 2025–26 Council hearings, the concept had already been cut from large four-story buildings with 156 units to seven smaller buildings: one 1-story, five 3-story, and one 4-story, plus 280 below-grade parking stalls and a 50-foot Kearns setback. That massing is still in front of the commission. What changed Aug. 26 was height.

The team is a public-private partnership among Park City Municipal, GTS, and Evanston, Illinois–based Brinshore Development. Steven Swisher of GTS walked commissioners through floor-height cuts on the six buildings with residential units. Per KPCW: residential floors 9 feet down to 8, commercial 12 down to 10, gables 12:12 down to 4:12. Centers of the five three-story buildings are described as 35 feet floor-to-parapet and 40 feet to the top of the gable, generally meeting the 35-foot zone max plus 5 feet for gables, at the building center. Site slope still pushes portions above 40 feet, about 1.5 feet on most, up to 4 feet on the Bonanza/Munchkin building. The four-story on Munchkin still needs a height exception, about 40 feet to the parapet and 49 feet to the gables. The commission was open to granting it.

Commissioners favored the reduced heights and split on the roofs. Matthew Day and Seth Beal preferred restoring steeper 12:12 / 7:12 pitches for a historic-district look. John Frontero and Grant Tilson opposed adding height back for aesthetics.

What is on the table

Official program: 106 residential units (88 deed-restricted affordable, 18 unrestricted); 32,581 square feet of commercial space; community green space; public art space; a child care center; and an underground garage.

Applications filed May 4–5, 2026: Master Planned Development PL-26-06914; Subdivision PL-26-06920; Multi-Unit Dwelling and Frontage Protection Zone CUP PL-26-06915; Non-Profit Use CUP PL-26-06917.

The garage is still 280 stalls against a code minimum of 208. About 130 are for residents; the rest are for employees and visitors, per KPCW’s account of Aug. 26. Frontero and Shand said that was too many stalls and that less parking would support transit. That argument is not closed.

Traffic is the other number you will hear. According to the applicant’s traffic study, as reported by KPCW, the project would add 1.4 seconds of delay at Kearns and Bonanza in the AM peak and 2.6 seconds in the PM peak. An earlier applicant figure, also as reported by KPCW on Aug. 13, put weekday trips at more than 1,200, including over 100 in each peak. Those are the developer’s studies as newsrooms summarized them, not independent city findings.

Open space is not a surveyed plat. The city describes community green space. 5acresite.com describes about 60% open space and a nearly 2-acre village green; GTS has described roughly 62% / two acres as the product of stacking buildings. Critics at the Aug. 12 hearing argued the green would sit inside a private development, not function as a public park.

The developer-provided mix on 5acresite.com breaks the 88 affordable units across AMI bands (14 at 40%, 21 at 50%, 30 at 60%, 14 at 70%, 9 at 80%) plus the 18 unrestricted, and projects 144–198 Park City workers housed. That is the applicant’s table, not city-verified minutes. Do not read it as units reserved for local workers.

Snow-covered Park City rooftops. Most in-town housing is already built out. Photo: Alex Moliski, Unsplash License.

What is next, and what is not guaranteed

Confirm the Sept. 9 packet and any Listen Live link on the Planning page and CivicClerk before you go; as of late August the Zoom listing was not yet posted. Additional meetings after Oct. 14 are possible.

The city history page describes the March 19, 2026 Second Amended Exclusive Negotiating Agreement: an anticipated city contribution of up to $40 million (or as later negotiated and approved by Council), and the city’s intent to enter a ground lease at $1 per year for 60 to 99 years. Those are ENA terms of anticipated contribution and intent, not a closed development agreement. The ENA runs to Dec. 31, 2026.

The applicant timeline on 5acresite.com still points at construction starting December 2027 and a grand opening in winter 2029. City communications director Clayton Scrivner already told the Park Record in June that website timeline is “a planning tool, not a guarantee” and should not be read as approval. Treat 2027/2029 as the applicant’s calendar, not the city’s.

Historic Main Street, Park City. The commercial core whose workforce keeps coming up in this debate. Photo: Saalebaer, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0.

What it means for nearby inventory

If you own or are shopping Bonanza Park, Prospector, Homestake, or the Kearns corridor, this is a land-use fight next door, not a resort expansion. Clark Ranch near Quinn’s Junction and Deer Valley East Village are other housing tracks on the 2026 map; they are not this hearing.

The closest hard-market fact in the same neighborhood is already operating. EngineHouse on Homestake Road, just off Kearns, is a public-private rental: 123 units, 99 income-restricted and 24 market-rate. The Park Record reported July 24 that the last income-restricted lease signed shortly after Independence Day, and 18 of 24 market units were leased. Nearby absorption, not a forecast for this site, and not an argument for or against it.

If you are listing nearby, buyers will ask about Kearns/Bonanza traffic, height, and whether the vacant city land becomes mixed-use or stays open. If you are buying nearby, underwrite the street you see today, not a 2029 opening the city has already flagged as unguaranteed. Place PC wants the five acres as park instead of project; the city’s adopted Bonanza Park Small Area Plan (July 11, 2024) pointed this neighborhood toward mixed-use. Planning Commission has not chosen.

Chairlifts over snow in Park City. Photo: Mollie Moran, Unsplash License.

Sit in Chambers Sept. 9 if you want to hear the commission with no testimony that night. Come back Oct. 14 if you want to speak. Email planning@parkcity.gov anytime.

I am not asking you to cheer this project or kill it. I am asking you to know what is built (nothing yet), what is next (Sept. 9, Oct. 14 possible action), and what it means for nearby inventory. That is the decoder, not the campaign.

Disclosure: The 5-Acre Site is in Planning Commission review. It is not entitled, not approved, and not under construction. The Exclusive Negotiating Agreement runs to Dec. 31, 2026. A no or a continuance is still a live outcome. City Council still comes later.

Esteban J. Nunez, Park City Realtor.