Park City Plans 13,000-Square-Foot Senior Center, Completion Eyed for 2027

Park City's planned senior center would rise on the Mawhinney lot across Park Avenue from the library, a 13,000-square-foot facility that would cost roughly $14.4 million and replace a building so cramped it has watched its membership grow from 70 people in 2020 to more than 750 today.

City officials shared schematic design goals for the project on March 10, with Matt Lee, Park City's economic development project manager, delivering the latest update during a joint meeting of the Park City Council and the Summit County Council. The current center sits at just 3,200 square feet, and the proposed replacement would be four to five times larger, with a building footprint targeted at 7,500 square feet, though that footprint could expand to 8,000 square feet depending on available funding.

"The current building is too small and can't accommodate the center's explosive membership," Lee said, citing membership figures of about 380 in 2022 and more than 750 as of March, up from just 70 six years ago.

The 13,000-square-foot target emerged from a negotiation between competing design visions. Architecture firm Sparano + Mooney had recommended a 15,000-square-foot design, while the City Council had previously set its sights on 10,000 square feet. After seniors pushed back on the smaller figure as insufficient, the city settled on 13,000 square feet as a compromise.

The demographic case for a larger facility extends well beyond current membership rolls. The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute projects that Summit County's population of residents 65 and older will increase by 42 percent over the next decade and by up to 67 percent by 2065, a trajectory that city planners cited as central to the project's rationale.

The $14.4 million cost estimate is tied specifically to a 7,500-square-foot building footprint. Funding sources, a detailed cost breakdown, site ownership details for the Mawhinney lot, and a formal construction timeline through the projected 2027 completion have not yet been publicly confirmed.