A contractor says they haven’t been paid, and a would-be owner wants his six-figure deposit back, as a condo-hotel on one side of Park City Mountain Resort initially slated to open two years ago remains under construction.

When Gabriel del Rio and his family put a deposit down on a condo at The Ascent Park City near the Frostwood Gondola, they were excited about adding another investment property to their portfolio, this one close to ski slopes and the two-week Sundance Film Festival.

“This looked like such a slam dunk,” del Rio said.

Four years later, Sundance just ended its run in Utah, but The Ascent has yet to open, missing multiple estimated opening dates. So del Rio is suing to get back the deposit of nearly $165,000.

Meanwhile, Quality Fire Protection – the company that installed sprinklers in the building – says it’s owed at least $104,000 from the general contractor on the project. The Utah-based contractor is suing to get paid and has put a construction lien on the property.

An attorney for Wolfgramm Capital, which manages Beehive Hospitality Ascent LLC, the company that’s behind the development, said via email that they don’t comment on pending litigation.

The company also didn’t respond to a request for an update on the project that The Salt Lake Tribune sent before del Rio filed the lawsuit. Hilton, which will manage the property as part of its Tapestry Collection, has indicated it will open in December.

Developer also owns hotel across the street

Beehive and Wolfgramm weren’t the first developers of the project. They bought it from a company called TS1 LLC after del Rio and several others put deposits down to secure their units.

Wolfgramm also owns the Waldorf Astoria Park City across the street, having purchased it in late 2022.

Both developments are “condotels,” where owners can rent their units through the property manager – in this case, Hilton – or through vacation rental websites like Airbnb and Vrbo.

They offer easy access to the Frostwood Gondola, which takes skiers and riders up to Canyons Village. From there, they can access thousands of acres of terrain or take a gondola over a gulch to more acreage on the Mountain Village side of Park City Mountain Resort.

The Ascent was about 30% complete when Beehive and Wolfgramm took over, according to a separate, now-dismissed lawsuit from investors.

A November 2022 Facebook post put the estimated completion in late 2023 or early 2024. There wasn’t another construction update posted on that page until August 2024, at which point the new estimate for completion was set at mid-2025.

An article in PCStyle magazine published last winter about the evolution of Canyons Village stated that The Ascent was expected to open in 2025, but a Utah Business article pushed that out to January 2026.

It’s now set to open in December, according to Hilton.

That’s three missed ski seasons when cash could have been flowing, del Rio said.

The condo was going to be the third vacation rental for Del Rio and his family, who live in Florida. Their other two are in Palm Springs, Calif., and near Dollywood and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.

The Utah location appealed to del Rio, a public relations specialist, because he’s a “huge skier” and wants his kids to be skiers, too.

His rental projections were promising, he said, to the tune of “at least six figures” lost over the years they’ve been waiting for developers to finish the project. Their other properties make between $30,000 to $40,000 a year, he said.

“This is a big bet, and it would be catastrophic,” if they can’t get their deposit back, del Rio said.

Disappointment to ‘straight up panicking’

Early progress on the property via a YouTube video looked fast, he said, with foundations and the parking lot completed in a couple of months. Other updates show them finishing the outside and working on units, but the last update was in September.

That video shows the interior still under construction, with a mix of open and closed-off balconies.

Del Rio said his family started getting worried when amenities like the pool weren’t finished, but work was still being done on the interiors of the 120 studio and one-bedroom condos.

Summit County issued a building permit for a pool and hot tub in October 2024, but it wasn’t ready for inspection as of last November, according to documents The Salt Lake Tribune obtained through a public records request.

Del Rio canceled his family’s purchase contract a year ago and was supposed to get the deposit back in October after signing a termination agreement and other paperwork, according to the lawsuit filed in state court.

The deposit is “a lot of the little money we have,” del Rio said, and they’ve gone from disappointment to “straight up panicking.”

The developer indicated that del Rio would receive his deposit back, the lawsuit states, but failed to reimburse him, even by an extended deadline of Oct. 13, 2025.

Phil Wolfgramm, CEO of Wolfgramm Capital, told del Rio via text on Nov. 13, 2025, that the deposit was “delayed only by ‘finalizing in financing,’” and that it should be an additional 30 days at most, the lawsuit adds.

Multiple people connected to the development told del Rio that “repayment was imminent upon the completion of financing events soon to occur,” the lawsuit reads, and one of them told him that concerns about the developer’s “financial viability or ‘going under’ were unfounded.”

Del Rio is asking for his money back plus interest and damages or, as an alternative, for a judge to use different types of orders to ensure he’s made whole.

Quality Fire Protection, the Utah-based contractor that installed the sprinklers, also is asking for its money back – one way or another.

The company has asked a judge to order Verity, the main contractor on the project, to pay them at least the $104,089 owed for labor, materials and equipment. The company has a second ask for a judge to order foreclosure and sale of the property to recoup what it’s owed.

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