Provo MSA Development Thread

[jedikermit]

Originally Posted by airhero

While development in Lehi is great, I don't understand the praise for all the buildings going up. How is Lehi any different from the Sandy office parks that are always getting harped on? There's no logical street layout. Every finished building (apart from Adobe's) is plain or unattractive and surrounded by parking lots, and the renderings I've seen for these new buildings don't impress. It's just another Sandy, but with tech companies.

Hate hate hate what's happened to the Lehi area. It's all new and shiny and new and shiny, but (with few exceptions) uninspired and without the infrastructure to support what's going in. And yeah, it's just more industrial parks. Perfect example of "lure them in, take their money, let them do whatever they want, because they gave us money." And the seas of beige stucco housing around them are just as offensive. I'm not anti-development of the area, I'm anti-how they've done it.

[UrbanDesign]

Wish I'd invested in Vivint Solar two days ago!

[Highrise_Mike]

Whether you like it or not, here is a Lehi update! Sorry I take lots of pics when I'm out

Vivnt Solar Building (I assume solar city will take over?)


















Younique Building


UCCU








Perry Office Building




Ancestry

[Makid]

Nice pictures Mike.

I don't mind you taking lots of pictures. It is nice to see the various angles of the new construction happening there.

I did have to make 1 correction though:

Vivnt Solar Building (I assume solar city will take over?)

Vivint was bought by SunEdison, not SolarCity.

Outside of that, I would expect SunEdison to take over as well as expand. This is based on the GOED incentive for another 3,000+ employees in Utah County for Vivint Solar.

SolarCity will be hiring 4,000+ employees in Salt Lake City.

This is fairly big news as 7,000+ green energy jobs will be happening in the next couple of years.

[TonyAnderson]

Originally Posted by Wasatch_One

I drive by it probably once a day and it pretty much blows my mind every time I do seeing all the office space. It sounds pretty unreal that more office sq. footage is currently being constructed at Thxgiving Poing than all of SL County combined!

Side note, did you all hear that Vivint Solar (now separate from Vivint since going public) was just acquired by SunEdison yesterday for $2.2B... their stock went up something like 44% yesterday alone. I wonder what that means for their current HQ under construction south of the Megaplex theatre at Thxgiving Pt.

Any numbers on that? Would be hard to do considering 111, Overstock headquarters (Bingam Junction in general), InContact in Sandy, 4-5 buildings in Vista Station in Draper alone, etc. going on right now.

Eh, guess it seems likely actually.

[s.p.hansen]

Originally Posted by TonyAnderson

Any numbers on that? Would be hard to do considering 111, Overstock headquarters (Bingam Junction in general), InContact in Sandy, 4-5 buildings in Vista Station in Draper alone, etc. going on right now.

Eh, guess it seems likely actually.

"Lehi has as much growth right now as we have in all of Salt Lake County," she said. It has 1.5 million square feet of commercial space under construction with 11 new buildings, compared with 1.4 million square feet of similar construction underway in all of Salt Lake County.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/2738453-155/lehis-high-tech-company-says-utah-owes?page=2

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by TonyAnderson

Any numbers on that? Would be hard to do considering 111, Overstock headquarters (Bingam Junction in general), InContact in Sandy, 4-5 buildings in Vista Station in Draper alone, etc. going on right now.

Eh, guess it seems likely actually.

Those first 3 projects are 1.1 million sf alone, so I doubt Lehi has more than SL County.

Also, 400,000 sf currently under construction at Vista Station (more to come).

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by jedikermit

Hate hate hate what's happened to the Lehi area. It's all new and shiny and new and shiny, but (with few exceptions) uninspired and without the infrastructure to support what's going in. And yeah, it's just more industrial parks. Perfect example of "lure them in, take their money, let them do whatever they want, because they gave us money." And the seas of beige stucco housing around them are just as offensive. I'm not anti-development of the area, I'm anti-how they've done it.

I couldn't agree more with you and airhero. A lot of 🞵🞵🞵🞵 being built in Lehi.

Rep. Anderegg seems confused (via the previously mentioned SL Tribune article about Lehi infrastructure). He seems to think "Silicon Slopes" is the same as Lehi, when it's actually the entire Wasatch Front.

[s.p.hansen]

Originally Posted by jedikermit

Hate hate hate what's happened to the Lehi area. It's all new and shiny and new and shiny, but (with few exceptions) uninspired and without the infrastructure to support what's going in. And yeah, it's just more industrial parks. Perfect example of "lure them in, take their money, let them do whatever they want, because they gave us money." And the seas of beige stucco housing around them are just as offensive. I'm not anti-development of the area, I'm anti-how they've done it.

Utah County seems to have made it very clear what their priorities are. For now, they want wide roads and little planning. We have a lost generation in Utah County and Southern Salt Lake County where people want to be identical to their mom and dad; they want the commute and they want the cheap house. The trend of young people in Utah rushing to the suburbs doesn't match the national trends. Granted we see a counter culture to that in some of the cool developments in downtown Provo, Ogden, and mostly with what's going on in SLC, but we're really behind the times in general with all this stucco and all this cheap sprawl.

[javiniscool]

Here are a few shots I got yesterday at University Place

The new Office Building
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Residences at University Place
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Where Mervyn's was
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[poodledoodledude]

speaking of orem, the planning commission just approved buildings up to 180 feet (16-18 stories) on 1200 north and 1200 west near the freeway. neighbors arent that happy.

buildings of this height need to be in downtown provo or SLC...not along the freeway next to a residential neighborhood, IMO. the buildings are all glass and stucco/stone.

ive seen the renderings. picture the new NuSkin building on 200 west and 100 south times 10....UGLY......

city council is waiting on their approval 2 weeks to get the neighborhood together and discuss.

[Wasatch_One]

I think this slipped through the cracks from back in June.

Orem is doing their best to create some semblance of a downtown:

https://www.ksl.com/?sid=34989775&nid=148

[delts145]

Originally Posted by poodledoodledude

speaking of orem, the planning commission just approved buildings up to 180 feet (16-18 stories) on 1200 north and 1200 west near the freeway. neighbors arent that happy.

buildings of this height need to be in downtown provo or SLC...not along the freeway next to a residential neighborhood, IMO. the buildings are all glass and stucco/stone.

ive seen the renderings. picture the new NuSkin building on 200 west and 100 south times 10....UGLY......

city council is waiting on their approval 2 weeks to get the neighborhood together and discuss.

I can understand why the neighbors would be upset. I assume it's those neighbors who would have their views blocked, and those views are pretty spectacular. The fact is though, that commute time is significantly easier when the tower is adj. to the interchange. At least that would be the case with Orem. Really, the Univ. Parkway and 800 No. are the only viable gateways to Orem during volume traffic hours. I would prefer that towers be focused more around the new development intersection of the Parkway and State.

From what Wasatch One has posted, it would appear that Orem will have two more densely focused areas along State. I think Orem's BRT is hugely important, and couldn't be more critical at this time.

[I-15]

Here's an Fox13 article and video that shows some of the renderings of the 160 ft building in Orem. Would be located on 1200 N and 1200 W.

http://fox13now.com/2015/10/05/orem-resi...ise-building-construction-with-petition/

[i-215]

Ugh, Orem? C'mon, guys!

Didn't you learn from your last fiasco with Midtown Village?

STOP
TRYING
TO
URBANIZE
ALONG
STATE
STREET !

Focus on TOD around the the Frontrunner station.



/end of rant

[Orlando]

I wish we had some overall urban development control board that would restrict this kind of tall development to just urban centers, ie. downtown Provo, Salt Lake City, etc. The Wasatch Front seems to have little to no controls in place for sprawl.

[TonyAnderson]

Originally Posted by i-215

Ugh, Orem? C'mon, guys!

Didn't you learn from your last fiasco with Midtown Village?

STOP
TRYING
TO
URBANIZE
ALONG
STATE
STREET !

Focus on TOD around the the Frontrunner station.



/end of rant

They're really not trying to urbanize though. There's just trying to build big office buildings that will be used for one purpose on the cheapest, most convenient land they can. I really don't get why a company would want to build a large HQ in Orem.

[s.p.hansen]

Originally Posted by TonyAnderson

They're really not trying to urbanize though. There's just trying to build big office buildings that will be used for one purpose on the cheapest, most convenient land they can. I really don't get why a company would want to build a large HQ in Orem.

Yeah, just to build on this, this seems less like new urbanism and more like realigning with the massive changes that have come to retail. Orem is clearly moving towards safer bets in retail and more office space so they're less dependent on retail.

[Deek1978]

Saw this on the Daily Herald's website this morning... article is from last week.

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/so...2ef354f-975b-5bab-8bef-81c673eb23d7.html

[i-215]

Originally Posted by TonyAnderson

They're really not trying to urbanize though. There's just trying to build big office buildings that will be used for one purpose on the cheapest, most convenient land they can.

Good point. Those buildings don't seem terribly tall and I bet Orem will make it meet 100% parking requirements (well, it has to -- there's no serious transit there to accommodate employees).

Worst of both worlds then: Increasing the land use intensity but servicing it entirely with cars. Isn't that basically what Los Angeles did decades ago with Century City, Universal City, Studio City, etc.? Pop up medium rises along major streets and provide no transit access.