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Public Maps Out Ideas For Point Of The Mountain Region

Julia Ritchey, KUER
Participants map out ideas for the Point of the Mountain region at a public workshop in Draper on Feb. 15.

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.

Julia joined KUER in 2016 after a year reporting at the NPR member station in Reno, Nev. During her stint, she covered battleground politics, school overcrowding, and any story that would take her to the crystal blue shores of Lake Tahoe. Her work earned her two regional Edward R. Murrow awards. Originally from the mountains of Western North Carolina, Julia graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2008 with a degree in journalism. She’s worked as both a print and radio reporter in several states and several countries — from the 2008 Beijing Olympics to Dakar, Senegal. Her curiosity about the American West led her to take a spontaneous, one-way road trip to the Great Basin, where she intends to continue preaching the gospel of community journalism, public radio and podcasting. In her spare time, you’ll find her hanging with her beagle Bodhi, taking pictures of her food and watching Patrick Swayze movies.
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