Way back in the 1970s, when the Yarrow Hotel was the biggest and finest lodging in town, it a watershed moment in Park City.  The Yarrow was part of a much more audacious project that included the Alpha Beta grocery store, Wolfe’s Sporting Goods, movie theaters, and some other stuff in the st rip mall.  By most architectural standards, it was all pretty ordinary — a standard strip mall with a generic airport conference hotel. Alpha Beta was a great grocery store and Wolfe’s was the premier sporting goods store in the state. They were the best of the best at the time.  But what made all the difference was that the Yarrow was branded a Holiday Inn. Park City, still very much in its duct tape and baling wire days, was elevated, legitimate enough to draw a national brand. Suddenly, Salt Lake banks would lend in Park City. Wolfe’s and Alpha Beta have been gone for decades now. The Yarrow closed this week for a major “reimagining” by new owners, which always sounds like trouble but might work out.  The point is that branding really does matter. So when something exogenous blows the brand to smithereens, there are weird consequences. I’m not sure what the Marcella developers are doing about Tiger Woods’ most recent meltdown, but having the front face of your product, who used to be the GOAT, dissipate himself into a sort of pathetic addict who repeatedly wrecks expensive cars while under the influence, is less than ideal.  I don’t follow or care about golf. It’s a waste of good pasture as far as I’m concerned.  But Tiger Woods made golf interesting for several years. Arguably the best ever, he blew away records at the sort of golf courses where he would have trouble getting a membership.  He was likeable, approachable, and bigger than life, one of those really heroic sports figures who come along maybe once a generation. Who wouldn’t want to have him associated with your private, Gatsby-esque golf course community? If it’s good enough for Tiger’s endorsement, it’s certainly good enough for the CEO of some insurance company. He blew up several years ago, seemed to have recovered from another major obstacle, and now has blown it all up again. I’m not sure what the Marcella marketing people do with that. It might be awkward having to explain to their rich owners that the golf carts are required to have breathalyzers and steering locks built into them because of Tiger’s history. There are a lot of problems with that project, a golf course on the top of windswept sage brush mountains. There has never been a drop of irrigation there, but the course is already glowing a radiant green with water rights sold and stripped from Wasatch County farms.  Water is pumped a thousand feet up the mountain for the benefit of a few very rich people who will build a fifth vacation home. It seems like questionable resource allocation, but that’s true of pretty much everything we’re doing around here these days. It’s not the kind of growth we need, but somehow having Tiger Woods imprimatur on it was almost enough to make it OK. Now, maybe not so much. There are ways to avoid that problem. Using dead people as the mascot ought to be safe, although Cesar Chavez makes it clear that even death isn’t enough of a firewall between the public image and the risk of past skeletons that come dancing out of the closet like the Rockettes.  So maybe the wisest course is to use fictional characters for the brand. There’s no chance of Betty Crocker being caught in flagrante delicto with the Quaker Oats guy.   Other than getting a pretty extreme face lift every 10 years or so (Botox?), there’s really nothing about Betty Crocker that can’t be trusted. There’s no love triangle involving Chef Boyardee. Both the brownies and the ravioli are beyond reproach in the moral turpitude department. We can talk later about the ravioli. The Pillsbury Doughboy can run around stark naked but for a hat and neckerchief, and nobody cares.  You don’t need a scandal-prone celebrity to have a problem brand. Dakota Pacific apparently decided that they have so thoroughly messed the nest that their brand is absolutely toxic. Nothing short of a complete rebrand of their company, and the loathed project the Legislature crammed down Summit County’s throats, would be enough to buy some needed some cover.    The project at the former Tech Park started out as Park City Tech, then for a couple of weeks was Kimball Junction West. And with the stroke of a planner’s marker, it is now (drum roll)  Altus.  And Altus is being developed by Dakota Pacific, rechristened and reimagined as Six Ridges. Well, that should solve the coming traffic tsunami at Kimball Junction. So all that unpleasantness in the past, the litigation threats, the Legislature’s corrupt involvement, the attempt to form their own municipality and write their own zoning law, more legislative corruption, the referendum that didn’t happen, all of that is behind us now, because Six Ridges is now in charge of building Altus and all is right with the world. Betty Crocker said so. As Shakespeare said, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. The same holds true when renaming skunks. Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986. The post More Dogs on Main: When the brand goes south appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less