Every town has landmarks—they offer a strong sense of place and serve as reference points for giving directions. When I arrived in Park City, directions started from the Kimball Garage, an auto service garage with gas pumps, and later the Kimball Art Center took over the garage and replaced it as the town landmark. Now, there’s another change, as the Kimball Art Center moved on to a new location. Elliot Work Group of Park City (Craig Elliot) designed a 14,500-square-foot renovation for the historic building and a 20,000-square-foot, three-story connected addition. Combined, they offer a strong presence on Heber Avenue running between Park Avenue and Main Street.
An internal corridor transitions the old to the new. On the right are windows to the new retail space in the historic renovation with clean new saw cuts sharply shaping the window openings.
The stairway leads up to the Kimball Terrace event space. On the east end is a 1,800-square-foot rooftop terrace over the historic renovation used for events.
The space is fitted out for catered events, and locals are just discovering there is a new big space for parties and weddings. The west end windows and balcony look over the busy foot traffic on Main Street. It would be a great spot to watch Park City’s electric holiday parade, one of my favorite local holiday events, which occurred a week or so before.
Returning to the main floor of the historic renovation, the shop nearest the transition corridor is We Norwegians. Architect Logan Swney from Elliot Work Group headed up the tenant improvements and teamed with We Norwegians. The central yurt serves a changing area.
The scarred concrete behind the service counter at We Norwegians is original to the historic building and calls to mind that expression: “If walls could talk.”
Elliott Work Group directed salvaging the trusses from the Kimball Garage to support the corner retail space where Free People operates.
A new LL Bean store occupies the main and lower floor of the new addition. The first LL Bean store in Utah and probably the region, it drew a lot of shoppers while I was there photographing it. Elliot Work Group’s tenant improvements set a theme for connecting with the outdoors.
The graphics serve as an invitation both to travel to the next level, but also to get outside and enjoy the outdoors.
The big three-day storm had moved in when I made the photos. The newly falling snow set a tone for excitement as skiers and boarders came down off the mountain to explore Old Town and new arrivals were just driving in and making ski vacation plans filled with fresh powder fantasies. A snowy afternoon in Old Town is a perfect reminder of why it’s great to live in the mountains. The snow doesn’t make for perfect exteriors, but I like showing how well the buildings function in this weather; after all, it’s the weather they were designed for. I will return for some crisp sunshine shots to better show shadows and how the buildings meet the sky.
See more of Scot Zimmerman’s Photo Friday work here!
