By his best guess, 68-year-old JR Colledge has lived at Shady Acres mobile home park for about 20 years. It’s some of the cheapest housing in the city. But Shady Acres is threatened by the looming major makeover of the nearby Provo Towne Centre mall.
The gray-haired jokester lives with his “psycho” orange cat, Simba, and his brother-in-law, who shares the rent. Colledge is worried about finding a new place for all of them to live that’s within their budget and in a good area.
“I don't see this project going anywhere but messing up a bunch of lives,” he said.
Neighbors Dave and Kay Larsen have lived here a decade longer than Colledge. They’re both in their 70s. They own their four-bedroom double-wide, but it would cost around $10,000 to move it, they said.
“We're just sitting here stuck. Don't know what to do. We can't sell, and we can't afford to move and leave it,” Kay said. “We've got a lot of money invested here.”
They pay $450 a month in lot rent, plus utilities. They live on Social Security and think they can only afford $800 or $900 per month for a new place. That’s not going to get the Larsens very far in Provo. A place of a similar size, on average, runs $1,500, according to Zillow.
Mobile home owners are in a unique and vulnerable place because they own their home but not the land it's on, said University of Utah property law professor Jenna Prochaska.
“And for that reason, many states have enacted strong protections specifically targeted at this kind of situation,” she said. “Utah has some protections in the state law, but they're not as strong as many other states.”
Under the Mobile Home Park Residency Act, Utah requires the park owner to give residents written notice and allows evictions under specific causes, including a change in land use. In this case, the developer of the mall project, Brixton Capital, wants the city council to approve a rezoning of the adjacent Shady Acres to build townhomes there.
The city doesn’t have to help either — Prochaska said there aren’t any requirements in Utah law for relocation assistance. But the city does have the legal option to use increased tax revenue from the redevelopment to help displaced residents move, she said.
This isn’t the first time this has happened in Provo.
When the mall was built, it wiped out a different mobile home park. In 1996, The Deseret News and The Daily Universe reported that the city bought or moved most of the trailers and took a major loss on the project. They then sold the land to the developers.
Now that history is repeating, Kay Larsen said, “They've gotta do something to help us.”
But there’s no indication right now that Provo is stepping in to help the mobile home park residents in that way this time. Provo Mayor Marsha Judkins said she believes in property rights, and her first approach is to turn to the developer.
“You work with them, you talk with them,” she said. “But also, I don't leave it up to them.”
There are existing resources in the city and the state for rental assistance, Judkins said, like the Provo City Housing Authority — she’s working with them too.
“I also believe very strongly that governments are instituted to do things that the private sector cannot or will not,” she said. “We all pay our taxes, and I think that part of those taxes are to provide for people who, you know, are having a really tough time on their own.”
Brixton Capital declined KUER’s interview request. But in an email, project executive Justin Long wrote, “While the law provides flexibility, we believe it is important to move beyond minimum legal requirements.” He added that they’re looking for approaches that are “both fair and feasible.”
Speaking at the March 24 Provo City Council work meeting, Long said they haven’t taken on a new tenant at Shady Acres in at least a year, and they’ve committed to giving current tenants 18 months’ notice.
“We really want to work with each of them individually to figure out what the right solution is for them because the range of desires and potential outcomes varies widely,” he told the council. “Some of those mobile homes are very old and may not be able to be moved.”
But Prochaska, the law professor, doesn’t think it should be left up to the developer or city. She thinks Utah needs stronger protections with substantial relocation assistance as a baseline.
“But even that really isn't enough because residents who can move their homes will also need help identifying local places they can move them to,” she said.
If the redevelopment of the Provo mall goes as planned, especially if the tenants aren’t given much help, she hopes that it’ll be a catalyst for change at the state level.
While some of the new townhomes Brixton wants to build and sell are supposed to be affordable, Mayor Judkins still worries about the loss of the mobile home park. She said it’s just one example of the struggles her city is having with deeply affordable housing and homelessness.
“This is happening all over, all the time, and we really, really need to be aware and take this into consideration as we do plan, right?”
Homelessness in Utah County increased 34% in 2025, according to the Utah Department of Workforce Services’ annual Point-in-Time Count. Judkins said the city and state need to invest more in supporting people like those in Shady Acres mobile home park.
The city council plans to discuss the issue at another work session that’s not on the books yet.
Read more about how the Provo Towne Centre redevelopment could affect its reputation as “America’s Nerdiest Mall.”
