In a video update published Tuesday, Sanderson said the buildings on the property are no longer usable, and the plan is to repurpose the land into the home of Dragonsteel headquarters, Sanderson’s publishing and business company.

“I thought long about this because I didn’t want to make a big celebration of ‘Yay, we bought this land,’ when essentially I worry that people will be like, ‘Brandon Sanderson killed Evermore,'” Sanderson said in the video. “The truth is, Evermore has long been dead. Nothing there is usable, and so what we’re doing is we are repurposing the land, and we’re going to do some very cool things with it.”

According to Utah County records, Dragonsteel Properties owns six acres of undeveloped property immediately to the south of the 13-acre Evermore property. Sanderson said he bought the neighboring parcel of land to build Dragonsteel Plaza, which would include a bookstore and an event space. When Evermore first went up for sale, Sanderson said he toured the property but did not buy it because he was not interested in running a theme park.

He said the owner was unsuccessful in selling the land, in part because Dragonsteel owns the land next door with access to North County Boulevard, and it was difficult for anyone else to use the land.

Sanderson and his team reconsidered and decided to buy the land to expand Dragonsteel Plaza, though he said the Evermore buildings cannot be used because they have deteriorated too far. 

“In fact, we are going to have to bring the grading of it back down,” he said. “It was built up with a lot of fill that is not stable and that  we can’t build on. So it’s exciting but sad news at the same time.”

Evermore Park, a fantasy adventure theme park, opened in 2018, but closed six years later due to financial struggles. Evermore CEO Ken Bretschneider told the Daily Herald in 2024 that the COVID-19 pandemic had long-lasting impacts on the park’s ticket sales and, combined with rising inflation, the burden was too heavy to keep the business going.

Sanderson said he is going to do the best he can to make good use of the land. A Dragonsteel news release Tuesday said the new headquarters will be complete with a warehouse, bookstore, event space and more.

“Every story needs to have an ending, and that’s part of what makes stories powerful is when they end,” Sanderson said. “And so this is an ending, but every ending is also, as we know, a new beginning.”