Oly hotel project seeks OK on Hill

Supporters of a luxury hotel project proposed for the state-built Olympic facilities near Park City are vying for a spot on the agenda of the upcoming special legislative session.

The 2006 Legislature adjourned March 1 before lawmakers could take final action on a resolution needed for negotiations to continue between the Chicago-based developer and the private foundation now over the Utah Olympic Park.

"We don't know whether we can keep this on hold for a year," said John Bennion, president of the Utah Athletic Foundation that owns and operates the park near Kimball Junction that was home to ski jumping, bobsled and other sports during the 2002 Winter Games.

Foundation leaders want Terrace Development to build a hotel on 30 acres of the park. The developers had been looking at the adjacent Sun Peak housing development as the site for a 330-room hotel, but area residents have balked at the 275,000-square-foot project.

An official of Terrace Development did not return a telephone call seeking comment. But for the foundation, the project would be a source of much-needed revenue as well as a way to draw new visitors to the park.

Although the foundation is funded with some $80 million in profits from the 2002 Olympics, even that isn't enough money to keep the facilities — which also include the speed-skating oval in Kearns — running in the black.

The resolution would have cleared the way for the foundation, which was created by the Legislature to take over the state-built facilities from the Salt Lake Organizing Committee post-Games, to make a deal with the developer.

Action is needed because former Gov. Mike Leavitt had placed conditions on commercial development on the site back in 1994, a year before the state sold its Olympic facilities to the private organizing committee.

But Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who controls the special session agenda, wants to limit it to just income tax reform, another issue that didn't get decided before the session ended. The governor has said he'll call lawmakers back before mid-May.

"The special session will be focused on one primary issue, and that is income tax reform," Huntsman's spokesman and deputy chief of staff, Mike Mower, said. "Income tax reform is a significant and important enough issue we feel it should be the center."