Salt Lake-based Dakota Pacific Real Estate wants to develop 50 acres it owns next to Skullcandy’s headquarters. Summit County has also asked the company to help build a town center next door.

Before plans are final, county leaders scheduled a public hearing for Thursday, Nov. 7.

“The purpose of the public hearing is not necessarily to get feedback on the final product. It’s getting feedback on the proposal,” Council President Malena Stevens said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” last week. “We’ve gotten to a point where we feel like there’s a lot of good in this project, as far as the public-private partnership in particular, so we want to understand if this is something that the public is interested in. “

See the slide deck Dakota Pacific will present below.

What is the developer asking for?

Dakota Pacific owns land around and primarily west of Skullcandy’s headquarters. Their current development agreement with the county only allows for technology offices, which council Vice President Tonja Hanson has approximated to 24 more Skullcandies.

In 2019, the company requested to modify the agreement to be able to build homes. That set off years of negotiations over density and affordability. The current proposal is a 750-unit neighborhood, with one-third of the units as affordable housing.

Pacific Dakota Real Estate

Some of the housing would be reserved for people earning 44% or 80% of Summit County Median Income (AMI), but most would be for those earning 60% of AMI.

What is public-private partnership?

The county and the developer were deep in negotiations in April when council members presented a counterproposal involving a public-private partnership to reimagine the Kimball Junction Transit Center and library, which is housed in the Sheldon Richins Building.

The parties kept the talks private to see if they could work, and in September, They launched a master plan that basically cuts the project site in half. The Dakota Pacific neighborhood is also west of Skullcandy and to the east, a “downtown.”

Pacific Dakota Real Estate

It would involve a larger transit center with underground parking, a mixed-use plaza with a pedestrian bridge to east Kimball and 165 more affordable housing units. A new library would be built next to Skullcandy, where the county would share office space with the audio technology company.

Read more: Summit County to buy Skullcandy building, land and lease

The additional 167 units of affordable housing bring total residential density to 917 units. A prospective continuing care retirement community (CCRC) is not included in the density metric due to its business license.

Read more: New Dakota Pacific plan concentrates open space near rest of Kimball Junction

Dakota Pacific has explored assisted living options, but says operators don’t believe Summit County’s population can support the size of the facility it has space for. Housing reserved specifically for seniors is promised if you are unable to offer a CCRC.

Read More: Profits and Land Stand in the Way of Replacing Oakley Assisted Living

What about State Route 224?

Critics of the development worry about the traffic it could generate, and the Utah Department of Transportation has been studying solutions to Kimball Junction traffic for years. He is expected to make a recommendation this year.

Read more: Fixing Kimball Junction traffic now comes down to two options

Dakota Pacific has promised to tie its construction schedule to UDOT’s potential Kimball Junction improvements.

Pacific Dakota Real Estate

But just because UDOT decides on a roadmap for Kimball Junction doesn’t mean there’s money for it. The project has to move forward. the agency’s six-year to-do list. That’s where the developer says he can help.

He has told the council he needs to demonstrate to the state government that improvements need to be made. Some council members argue that State Route 224 will likely be modified or repaired without any development, but Dakota Pacific says the neighborhood and downtown area would give traffic fixes an extra priority when it comes to UDOT.

And state legislators have been interested in getting some type of project approved. During the 2022 and 2023 general sessions, they passed bills aimed at accelerating the development of Kimball Junction.

Read more: Legislature passes SB84, which could force Dakota Pacific development in Kimball Junction

The latter sparked a lawsuit that has been on hold while Summit County and Dakota Pacific come to the table. The next legislative session begins in January and the Summit County Council has signaled it would like to finally vote on the project before the end of the year.

Who pays what?

Dakota Pacific would pay only for its 750-unit neighborhood. The developer and county plan to share the costs of the public-private partnership: downtown, transit center, civic buildings, affordable housing, crosswalk, open space, etc.

Dakota Pacific has presented a flexible cost-sharing framework, which included a $39 million purchase from Summit County, but the council may begin haggling over some of those items after the Nov. 7 hearing.

“It’s going to be a better outcome because we’re doing it together,” Dakota Pacific Business Development Director Steve Borup said during the most recent weekly discussion. “But the intent of what we’re proposing is to try to be fair. If we did this ourselves, we’d be paying for these things, too.”

Councilman Chris Robinson believes who pays for what should be determined in part by how much housing Dakota Pacific manages to build.

“We had nothing to do with the question about how many units are on their western parcels,” he said of private discussions about the downtown area. “Now we have that information.”

Pacific Dakota Real Estate

What’s next?

Before the public process to create a master plan for the city center was halted, the developer and council had been going back and forth with proposals and counterproposals. That has not happened since talks resumed in September.

Read more: What are the economic limitations of developers? Dakota Pacific explains

Once the council receives community feedback this week, it will continue negotiations with Dakota Pacific before making a formal decision.

How to attend the hearing

The hearing is Thursday from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm in the conference room of the Newpark Resort hotel in east Kimball Junction. Residents can also attend virtually at this link: https://zoom.us/j/772302472

Click here to re-watch County Council’s past discussions with Dakota Pacific. This year, discussions took place on April 4, May 9, July 10, August 7, September 18, September 25, October 2, October 9, October 23, and October 30.