Park City Resorts Are Ready For A Season Unlike Any Other and with opening day of the Park City ski season just a week away, the executives at both Park City Mountain and Deer Valley Resorts talked about what will be a ski season unlike any other. KPCW shares that in their annual update to members of the Park City Board of Realtors, Chief Operating Officers at Deer Valley Todd Shallan and at Park City Mountain Mike Goar reviewed their plans for a ski season in the midst of a pandemic with the goals remain the same – Get open and stay open.

“The bottom line is we are planning on opening on December 5th and our goal is to stay open and keep people as safe as we possibly can,” said Shallan. Mike Goar added, “ yeah it’s certainly a different year, to say the least. I would say kind of our operating motto if you will is, open to stay open.” The good news from both resorts is that despite not having any J1 visa workers – their staffing levels look better now than it did a year ago. While their pandemic operating plans have been released to the public more than a month ago, something new that was mentioned is that Park City Mountain – in addition to making a reservation to get on a chairlift, reservations will also be required at all of their on-mountain lodges and restaurants. The main goal is all about keeping guests and employees safe.

Park City is scheduled to open both its Park City and Canyons Village bases on Friday, November 20th and Deer Valley will open on Saturday Dec. 5th.

Urban development experts say Utah could be a hot destination for people who, even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, were already migrating out of the biggest U.S. cities. Deseret News shares - Is COVID-19 the ‘great accelerator’? Utah set to win big as big cities continue to lose residents. Even before the onset of COVID-19, big U.S. metro areas were losing the domestic migration war to smaller, midsize cities and suburbs in a trend reversal that dates back almost a decade. Now, restrictions brought on by the global pandemic have only highlighted the downsides of big cities and the relative upsides of locales with assets like low cost of living, growing economies and easy access to outdoor recreation opportunities.

Utah could be perfectly positioned to become one of the top destinations for those fleeing urban residential settings that have become, for some, considerably less desirable amid the current public health crisis. Data shows residents, on a net basis, have been moving out of U.S. metro areas with populations of 1 million or more and finding new homes in smaller cities going back to 2012. And in the past several months, restrictions in place across the country aiming to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 have functioned as a “great accelerator” of that migration.

The Utah model is something that is worth studying. The state’s “welcoming atmosphere” and “greater family friendliness” as factors that make it an increasingly attractive destination for people looking to move. To read the entire article CLICK HERE.

With the market in Utah booming, the Park City real estate market continues to boom amid the pandemic according to The Park Record as the Park City real estate market continues to surge, with sales in the third quarter more than doubling the activity in the same period in 2019. In the spring, the coronavirus pandemic shook the Park City business community, forcing the closure of non-essential businesses and thrusting the economy into a sudden downturn. Amid the upheaval of that period and the months that have followed, however, one industry crucial to Park City’s economy has experienced a dramatic run of success. And third-quarter data from the Park City Board of Realtors indicates that the real estate market continues to boom.

“You’ve got an environment here where you’ve got hiking, biking trails, you’ve got a couple of lakes nearby that you can boat in — golf courses, fishing,” Winstead said. “I don’t think the world really realized there were so many opportunities in such a small area.”

The question now is whether the people who’ve bought homes here during the COVID crisis plan to live in Park City permanently or retreat back to urban areas when the pandemic is over. Winstead, for one, has heard from many Realtors whose clients say they want to make the Park City area their permanent home. “It’s hard to leave Park City once you’ve been here,” he said. “Every time I think about going on a vacation, I’m like, ‘Well, where’s a better place to go than Park City?’