Point of the Mountain authority gets legislative committee OK

By Brice Wallace

A bill creating an authority to oversee development of the current site of the Utah State Prison in Draper advanced unanimously last week from a legislative committee.

The House Government Operations Committee voted 8-0 to send the measure to the full House. It is sponsored by Rep. Lowry Snow, R-St. George.

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HB372 would create a Point of the Mountain State Land Authority to plan, manage and implement the development of the 700-acre site that currently houses the Utah State Prison. The prison will move in a few years to a site west of Salt Lake City International Airport. The authority would be an independent, nonprofit, political subdivision of the state to facilitate the state land development.

The entity would be authorized to pursue development designed to maximize the creation of high-quality jobs and encourage and facilitate a highly trained workforce; ensure strategic residential and commercial growth; promote a high quality of life for residents on and surrounding the Point of the Mountain state land; complement the development on land in the vicinity of the state land; improve air quality and minimize resource use; and accommodate and incorporate the planning, funding and development of an enhanced and expanded future transit and transportation infrastructure and other investments.

An authority board would have 11 members: two each from the House and Senate; four appointed by the governor, including one from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and one from the Division of Facilities Construction and Management; an elected Salt Lake County government official appointed by the county mayor; the Draper mayor or a mayor-designated city council member; and the state commissioner of higher education.

No one from the public spoke in opposition to HB372 in the committee hearing.

Robert Grow, president and chief executive officer of Envision Utah, which was selected by the Point of the Mountain Development Commission for the visioning and planning of the region, told the committee that the state-owned prison site size equates to 70 blocks in downtown Salt Lake City and is part of a 20,000-acre area being considered for development between Sandy and Lehi.

The legal authority created in the bill is needed “to begin the tough work that’s going to be necessary to get this right,” Grow said of the region’s development. “I cannot overstate the complexity of this challenge with that central site of about 70 downtown Salt Lake City blocks, as well as the 20,000 acres that it will help drive.”

The commission favors a scenario for the prison site that would create a nationally known research or university center that could prompt more high-paying jobs throughout the Wasatch Front. It also could feature mixed-use, office, retail and residential areas, as well as open space. The region’s development could result in 150,000 new high-tech jobs along the Wasatch Front, with 50,000 being at the prison site. Details about the preferred scenario are at https://pointofthemountainfuture.org.

“Under any of the scenarios for the future that we have looked at, this area will fill up by 2050,” Grow said. “It’s filling up rapidly now, so taking advantage of this opportunity — getting it right, so to speak — is going to take aggressive action by the state, particularly given the opportunity for the prison site itself to become the catalyst, the driving force, behind the kinds of development you want to see there.”

Draper Mayor Troy Walker said the economic benefits of developing the site “will be substantial.”

“We appreciate the opportunity to be a partner with the state and the county and all the players in this and we think that, as it goes forward and working together, we can create something that is unbelievable and unique,” Walker said. “This is probably the most unique opportunity the state is going to have in all of our careers.”

Andrew Gruber, executive director of the Wasatch Front Regional Council, noted that the bill recognizes transportation’s importance to the site’s development and that it requires coordination of relevant metropolitan organizations and with Draper and Salt Lake County’s planning divisions.

Ben Hart, deputy director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, said the bill is technical but ensures that “all voices have been heard and represented.”

“When we’re looking at an economic opportunity of this magnitude, we have to be able to move at the speed of business. When we have a generational land development opportunity like this, we have to be responsive,” Hart said.

“There’s a lot of twists and turns in this legislation, but each one of those are absolutely needed for what we need to be able to do with the Point of the Mountain property. … We believe this is the right piece of legislation necessary to optimize the Point of the Mountain, not just for today but for future generations to come.”{/mprestriction}