The Deseret News shares that a developer plans to make Utah site the first new full-service ski resort in country since 1980 - By Amy Donaldson. For nearly 40 years, no developer has managed to build and open a new, full-service ski resort, but it’s not because there wasn’t demand for one or a desire to do so.

"I know that the mountains are littered with developers who thought they were going to do something and nothing happened,” said Gary Barnett, founder and chairman of Extell Development Company, who unveiled plans Monday for a ski resort and village that includes hotels, condominiums and residential housing. ”I mean, nothing has really been done in the country in the last 30 years, since Beaver Creek, really. … It’s so hard to do.”

So what makes a guy who doesn’t even ski think he can do what no one else has managed since 1980? A unique set of circumstances and colleagues with a vision.”I think once again, one of the important things for us was the ability to tap into tax increment financing,” he said, referring to the fact that Wasatch County had designated the Mayflower Resort area as a place where Utah’s Military Industrial Development Agency could build a recreation hotel, which returns some of the property tax generated from development to developers in exchange for reduced fees for military personnel.

”The fact that MIDA is there, supporting it and helping speed up the process, was a very necessary component for me to get involved. I would not have gotten involved otherwise,” Barnett said. The project — Mayflower Mountain Resort — is ambitious in its scope, with plans for 5,600 acres that are just west of U.S. 40 and Jordanelle Reservoir (near Exit 8) and adjacent to Deer Valley that includes 1,520 residential units, 825 hotel rooms and commercial units and 600 skier parking spaces.

It will be the first recreation project created to work with the military for the state, said Kurt Krieg, vice president of development. The Military Industrial Development Agency is a state-run economic development entity with a military focus, which in this case, offers ski resort vacation opportunities to military personnel at a fraction of the cost.

Among the advantages the new resort will have is its proximity to one of the state’s top rated resorts — Deer Valley. ”We have the ability to connect to Deer Valley,” Barnett said, noting that Extell just renegotiated a lease of land to Deer Valley that makes the future more predictable for both entities. ”Obviously, they’d have to purchase a Deer Valley ticket, but there is that ability to provide skiing. We feel like the access from our side of the mountain is exceptional.”

The location of Mayflower may offer it some unique advantages that other start-ups don’t enjoy, including 35 minutes and no stop lights from the Salt Lake City International Airport to the freeway exit.

”There is no other resort of this scale, maybe around the world, that I know of that is 35 minutes from a major, international airport,” he said. “It’s going to have access to everywhere. … That’s the No. 1 thing Utah has going for it is this access. And we have straight highway, no traffic lights. … So we’ve got everything in our favor to get this thing done.” The goal is to have the village and some ski runs open within five years.

Extell has discussed climate change challenges, as they planned the development and acquired land, Barnett said. It also hopes to be supportive, if not involved in, Utah’s bid for another Winter Olympics in 2030 or 2034. “We love the idea, and we’d love to be involved in it,” he said. “Anything we do would have to be coordinated with Deer Valley and the state of Utah, but we certainly love the idea of playing a very active role. We hope we get it in 2030.”

Some of what Barnett and his team envision is similar to what’s out there. Some of it is unique. But before they can begin to build anything, they are conducting a voluntary cleanup of the mountain, because the last mining companies left in 1969 without the resources to clean up any contamination. The land has been vacant, even as development occurred around it, in part because of the contamination and in part because it was owned by a foreign trust with a trustee who sought a higher price than anyone was willing to pay.

As the trustees re-negotiated representation, the land became available and then it was a matter of cleaning up the contamination in order to develop it in the ways Extell envisions. On Monday, several members of the Extell team and the Military Industrial Development Agency representatives took media on a tour of the picturesque site, pointing out where ski lifts might be, where water tanks will be installed and how cleanup will work.

In some places, as much as 18 inches of soil is being removed and it will be taken to a central location and capped, as is standard in these types of cases, according to Krieg, who led the tour. While no other full service resort has opened in the U.S. since 1980, about a half dozen terrain parks or ski resorts without on-site lodging have opened, including Cherry Peak, which is 20 minutes outside Logan, and two hours north of Salt Lake City. But nothing like most of Utah’s resorts — and nothing like what Extell has planned for Mayflower Resort.

”We have the makings of a really beautiful resort town,” he said. “And that’s what we’re looking at doing.”

The Tour of Utah is once again scheduled to pedal two of its six legs through Summit County and finish on Main Street in Park City. This year’s race covers 477 miles around northern Utah as racers compete in 13 King of the Mountain climbs up an estimated 37,882 feet, and through another 15 sprint competitions. The main events for Summit County spectators are scheduled to take place on Saturday, Aug. 17, the fifth leg of the race, and Sunday, Aug. 18, the sixth and final stage.

The fifth stage of the race begins at 2:30 p.m. and will loop from the Canyons Village at Park City mountain around the Jordanelle and Rockport reservoirs before heading back to the resort. There will be sprint lines in Kamas and Hoytsville, bracketed by King of the Mountain challenges back up to the Jordanelle and through Browns Canyon.

In the day’s final miles, racers will ride through Kimball Junction up to the Utah Olympic Park and will cut down Bear Hollow drive before a final push along Canyons Resort Drive and High Mountain Road to the finish near the Umbrella Bar in Canyons Village. Frontrunners are expected to finish around 6 p.m. A free concert with Florida-based jazz trio Honey Hounds is set to take place after the awards ceremony at 6:30 p.m.

The route, first introduced in 2012, covers 78.2 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing. Racers will leave from Main Street at approximately 12:30 p.m. and head out of the city to Brown’s Canyon with another sprint line in Kamas before zig-zagging into a 2.1-mile KOM climb through Wolf Creek Ranch. The riders will descend into Wasatch County down to Heber, entering the race’s final sprint section in Midway before the grueling six-mile climb along Pine Canyon Road up to Empire Pass. After topping out, racers will ride the switchbacking descent down Marsac Avenue and race up Main Street to the finish line.

“We’re excited to have the Tour of Utah returning to Main Street,” said mayor Andy Beerman via email. “Main Street is an iconic finish to a race that not only highlights amazing athletes, but also Utah’s most spectacular landscapes.” For more information go to TourofUtah.com.

It’s official: Deer Valley is hosting another freestyle World Cup this winter. The U.S. Ski and Snowboard sent out a press release confirming the FIS winter schedule, including the Intermountain Healthcare Freestyle International, on Feb. 6-8. The Freestyle International will include moguls, aerials and dual moguls competitions, with a viewing area at the top of Deer Valley’s Burns and Snowflake lifts above Snow Park Lodge. This year will be the 20th that Deer Valley has hosted the event, which has become a favorite of athletes and spectators.

“Deer Valley is honored to have been selected as a venue for another freestyle skiing World Cup and to be able to continue our long tradition of hosting these international competitions,” said Emily Summers, a spokeswoman for Deer Valley in an email. “We are looking forward to welcoming the mogul and aerial teams back to Deer Valley in 2020.”

The resort was the host site for the 2019 World Championships and has a storied past in freestyle skiing. It was where Jonny Moseley performed the Dinner Roll during the 2002 Olympics, spurring a rules change to allow inversions, and where Mikael Kingsbury became the winningest moguls skier in history last year.

The event is particularly pertinent to the U.S. freestyle teams, which are based out of Park City and consider the venue their home turf. At the World Championships in February, Americans Brad Wilson and Jaelin Kauf both medaled in dual moguls.

The U.S. Alpine team will host the HomeLight Killington Cup on Nov. 30 through Dec. 1 in Vermont. That event is followed on the Alpine calendar by Birds of Prey at Beaver Creek in Colorado on Dec. 6 through 8.

In cross-country skiing, the Fastenal Parallel 45 Winter Festival in Minneapolis will be held over four days in March, including a music festival, panel discussions and the first cross-country World Cup to come to the U.S. in 19 years. The longstanding drought was broken thanks to the U.S. team’s performance at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games, where Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall took home the nation’s first-ever gold.

The World Cup cross-country freestyle sprint event will be held on March 17, and will act as the second leg of a mini sprint tour that begins in Quebec City the weekend before.

The freeskiing and snowboarding World Cup halfpipe season is scheduled to begin at Copper Mountain on Dec. 11-14.

On Jan. 29 to Feb. 1, skiers and boarders will compete in slopestyle and halfpipe at Mammoth Mountain in California. One more major freeski and snowboarding event will be added to the U.S. calendar in the coming weeks, the press release stated.

“Fans of ski and snowboard sports have a lot to look forward to in the coming season, especially here in the U.S.,” said U.S. Ski and Snowboard President and CEO Tiger Shaw in the press release. “We have the cross-country World Cup coming back to America for the first time in nearly 20 years with the event in Minneapolis in March. That is going to be an awesome event, giving Jessie Diggins, Sophie Caldwell, Sadie Bjornsen and their teammates (including Park City’s Rosie Brennan) the opportunity to race at World Cup level on home soil for the first time in their careers, in front of thousands of people.”

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