Once hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, This Is the Place Heritage Park is a year ahead of its budget and now operating in the black.

The state park just finished its summer season with $524,233 in the bank — nearly $25,000 more than specified by its budget. That improvement came after legislators last March gave the park $2 million to keep it afloat.

"People want to be involved with something that's successful," said Matt Dahl, executive director of This Is the Place Heritage Park Foundation. "Once they get up here, they catch the fever and they want to help."

Dahl and foundation board chairman Ellis Ivory were part of the administrative makeover of the foundation that began in March, when Dahl, former director of the American West Heritage Center in Cache County, and Ivory, founder of Ivory Homes, took the helm. Ivory is also chairman of the Deseret Morning News Board of Directors.

As the park goes into its off-peak winter season, park officials are looking to find some money-makers so they will never have to ask for the one-time state cash again.

At a foundation board meeting Monday, board members discussed some of those ideas. Two trains running the perimeter of the village, a petting corral, a playground and revamped programming and tours will be up and running by the 2007 season, which starts April 6.

Board members are still studying the idea of leasing a chunk of the 430-acre property to the University of Utah's Research Park and building a three-wing event center on an adjacent empty lot. Combined, the two options could bring in an estimated $800,000 annually, a steady revenue stream for the living history site.

But neighborhood residents have objected to the idea of developing the area at the mouth of Emigration Canyon. Foundation leaders have been to town meetings with Sunnyside East residents and plan to keep discussing options with the residents.

On Monday, the board's leadership voted to nominate resident Hugh Barlow to the board, as a liaison between the neighborhood and the foundation.

The board will keep studying the idea of leasing the land and building an events center and will reconvene on March 12 to vote on the matter.

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E-mail: astowell@desnews.com