Several companies have wooed Lehi City in the last decade with promises of retail grandeur -- gondolas floating along a wide canal from store to store, outdoor lifestyle malls, designer communities, shopping outlet malls.

Corporate representatives estimate the completed product will bring $3.5 million in annual tax revenue to Lehi City coffers. the sales tax revenue would be $1.8 million of that figure.

"They have owned the property for years with the anticipation of doing this project," said Lehi City's economic director Doug Meldrum. "In our studies in the city, we have determined that the population doesn't quite justify (the project) but by the time it's built it will."

Dubbed Thanksgiving Station, the 140-acre project at 2100 North, 2300 West and Thanksgiving Way will include a regional mall.

Woodbury President Richard Mendenhall spoke to the Lehi mayor and City Council members at a precouncil meeting Tuesday to update them on the development and transportation issues for the area.

Thanksgiving Station will have a hybrid of an indoor/outdoor mall, a hotel, power retail center, offices, restaurants and high density housing and will be built in phases.

Mendenhall said they plan to complete the first phase by 2010, just in time for the opening of the UDOT's north Lehi east-west boulevard.

What will be included in the first phase project hasn't been decided yet, although Meldrum said he anticipates the mall being built first.

And if Mendenhall's wife gets her way, that may will be. An Alpine resident, Mendenhall told those gathered at the presentation that he asked her what she would like to see in north Utah County. She told him, "There are not the retail services that I'm used to," he said. "There are not the quality retail stores that we find [other places]."

Grand in scope, the project would be similar to Salt Lake City's downtown retail center, Cottonwood, Fashionplace and South Towne Mall, said Meldrum.

"This is big enough, this will change that area," he said. "It's huge."

Considered the population epicenter of Utah State, north Lehi is about halfway between South Towne Mall and University Mall.

"We go clear to University Mall and there is nothing in between," Meldrum said of the location. " It has all these assets going for it."

Much of the phasing of the development of Thanksgiving Station would depend on the growth and demand. Of primary importance in retail negotiations would be accessibility, Mendenhall said, "It's not the location, it's not the population, it's not the household income, it's the access.

"You have the railroad tracks, the Jordan River, the freeway. You are only going to have two or three access points and they have to be able to handle high traffic."

Thanksgiving Station will be less than half a mile away from mass transit or commuter rail to the west with plans for access to the south from 2100 North and east from Thanksgiving Way.

"Transportation is critical to the success of this project," Meldrum said. "If we don't have the transportation set up through the process [of the development], it makes the whole project fail because people won't want to go [shopping there] when it's a traffic nightmare."

Which is why Woodbury Corporation, Lehi City, Horrocks Engineering and UDOT are working closely together to plan ahead with egress and ingress designs that will work for the community and the massive commercial and residential development.

"We think their plan is one that is needed in the valley and in our part of the county," Meldrum said. "We're excited that this type of opportunity is coming to Lehi City."