Planners for the Point of the Mountain Commission are soliciting ideas from the public for what they hope will become a hub for Utah’s growing high-tech industry.
At Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Draper on Wednesday, groups of five to six people gathered around tables, armed with Crayola markers, construction paper and a huge map of the Point of the Mountain, stretching from Sandy down to Lehi.
At one table, Ulises Flynn, a Bluffdale resident, pointed to an area he’d like to see an extension of a Trax line. He says he’s excited about the prospect of more jobs and retail in the area, but wants to make sure it doesn’t aggravate congestion.
“Being able to plan for traffic and especially, in my opinion, providing hubs for Trax or FrontRunner to be able to be close to those businesses,” he says of his top concern. “If you want to attract the high-tech businesses, let’s get some good connectivity, so people aren’t having to drive their cars to work.”
Straddling Utah and Salt Lake counties, the area called Point of the Mountain consists of about 700 acres of state-owned land, where the Utah State prison currently sits, and up to 20,000 undeveloped acres around it.
Robert Grow is the CEO of Envision Utah, the nonprofit spearheading the workshops and planning process.
He says they’ve already gotten feedback from about 1,500 stakeholders, gauging what they like about the area and what they’d like to see change.
“They love their open spaces; they want to make sure there are trails; they want to make sure there’s more parks; that this does not become overcrowded; that the transportation works,” he says. “So we’re hearing lots of things from lots of different groups.”
Envision Utah will continue collecting input through spring. Planners will look at the major themes from that feedback and begin creating scenarios and model renderings to present back to the public by the end of the year.