PLEASANT GROVE — Utah author Brandon Sanderson, who was previously in the center of rumors about the future of the immersive theme park Evermore in Pleasant Grove, announced Tuesday that he plans to buy the commercial property.
Evermore Park was a year-round fantasy adventure experience where guests accomplished adventures or quests in a medieval and Victorian-inspired village. In April 2024, property owner Brandon Fugal announced that the tenants who ran the “experiential-themed attraction” had closed the park’s doors permanently.
Fugal said the park struggled over the years with its operating model and with the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the real estate of the park was being repositioned to unveil a new attraction and project.
After the closure, rumors immediately started circulating that Sanderson would buy the property and revitalize the theme park. Internet detectives believed this was true as Sanderson’s company had bought adjacent property to the Evermore Park for Dragonsteel Plaza, a headquarters for all things in the Sanderson-universe, and he had been spotted touring the Evermore property.
But the new owners, Travis and Michelle Fox, confirmed that Sanderson was not involved in the new park’s plans, which they hoped to call RealmTown. In August 2024, the Foxes announced they were going to reveal details about the park’s new direction over the course of several months via tournament clues.
In January 2025, however, the land’s future once again became uncertain when Fugal announced the sale had never closed. Evermore Park filed a lawsuit against the Foxes over an alleged breach in the purchase agreement, and the Foxes responded with their own countersuit.
Since then, the future of the land has been unknown — until Sanderson announced Tuesday in his weekly YouTube update that his company Dragonsteel was partnering with The Will Group to purchase the commercial property that used to be Evermore Park.
“So here’s the bomb I’m going to drop on you this week,” he started off his final update with, saying it dealt with the Dragonsteel Plaza project.
“When Evermore went up for sale, a lot of people assumed I would buy it. And I did go tour it to see, and I said ‘No,'” he said. “Basically, I was not interested in running a theme park. I’m still not interested in running a theme park, so don’t get your hopes up in that regard.”
Sanderson said he passed on buying the land and never even considered it strongly because he really hoped someone else would come in and bring Evermore back to its original vision, something he knew he couldn’t do himself.
Several people tried to buy the land and make another Evermore-type park work, but “when it became obvious no one could,” he started looking at how the land could be useful to him. Because the adjacent land Sanderson owns has access to the nearby large road, it was a harder property to sell and for anyone to use, he said.
“Now, I know where your mind is going: ‘Brandon, are you buying Evermore?’ Well, it’s bittersweet because I am and I’m not,” Sanderson said. “Eventually things came together and we looked at expanding Dragonsteel Plaza into this extra land, and it got exciting for us but also was sad for us because it meant no one was going to be able to make Evermore work.”
The acquired land will become the permanent home of Dragonsteel HQ with a warehouse, bookstore, event space and more. But Sanderson said he was worried about making this announcement because he knows how much Evermore meant to so many people.
While he is buying the land Evermore sits on, Sanderson is not going to be able to keep any of the Evermore Park intact. Even though he really wanted to preserve some of the unique design, the buildings have degraded too far and the land needs to be graded again to stabilize the ground, he said.
He acknowledged the passion, hard work and “sweat” that people put into making Evermore work, and said he even went multiple times with his family and enjoyed it. But at the same time, it was a very difficult business to make work in a city where it’s cold in the winter, he added.
Sanderson didn’t want to make a big celebration of him buying the land because he worried people would think “Brandon Sanderson killed Evermore.”
“The truth is, Evermore has long been dead. Nothing there is usable, and so what we’re doing is repurposing the land, and we are going to do some cool things with it,” he said. “But I don’t want to talk about those right now because a lot of people seeing this have a lot of emotional investment in Evermore, and I don’t want this to be a celebration of the fact that Evermore didn’t end up working.”
Sanderson said more updates on the project will be released in the future, but people will likely see demolition starting soon.
“I know this is kind of a downer note to end on, but every story needs to have an ending. And that’s part of what makes stories powerful is when they end. And so this is an ending, but every ending is also, as we know, a new beginning,” he concluded.
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