Utah Valley Executive Summit encourages intelligent planning for the future
Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox speaks during the Utah Valley Executive Summit held at Sundance Mountain Resort on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018.
Clark Ivory, Ivory Homes chairman, gives a presentation on residential housing in Utah County during the Utah Valley Executive Summit held at Sundance Mountain Resort on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018.
Mary DeLaMare-Schaefer, UTA regional general manager, addresses the attendees of the Utah Valley Executive Summit held at Sundance Mountain Resort on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018. DeLaMare-Schaefer provided an update on the Utah Valley Express route.
Clark Ivory, Ivory Homes chairman, explains the current status of residential housing in Utah County during the Utah Valley Executive Summit held at Sundance Mountain Resort on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018.
Brandon Fugal, chairman at Colliers International in Utah, gives a presentation on the current status of commercial real estate in Utah County during the Utah Valley Executive Summit held at Sundance Mountain Resort on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018.
Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox addresses the attendees of the Utah Valley Executive Summit held at Sundance Mountain Resort on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018.
Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox speaks during the Utah Valley Executive Summit held at Sundance Mountain Resort on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018.
Business leaders, legislators, community organizations and residents are determining the future of Utah County, and speakers at Tuesday’s economic summit hope they will do so intelligently.
Juliette Tennert, of the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, summed up this assertion as she kicked off the Utah Valley Executive Summit on Thursday morning by quoting Eric Allenbaugh: “Whether by design or by default you are shaping your future.”
Tennert listed multiple ways Utah County’s economy is strong, including significant increases in job creation across most sectors. Utah earns high business and economic honors across the nation, and much of that is due to Utah County. As Tennert explained through various data points, “Utah cannot be No. 1 without Utah County.”
While there is much good in Utah Valley, the community is facing significant growth — both a boon and a challenge to the area. By 2060, a third of Utah’s population is going to be living in Utah County, Tennert explained, cautioning the political and business leaders gathered there at Sundance Mountain Resort that they needed to plan for that.
“The future is going to happen. And you have all this incredible growth. And that growth is going to continue in some way by default, but you can also be thoughtful about how you as business leaders help to shape that growth and shape that community,” Tennert said.
Businesses from around the nation are settling along Silicon Slopes, and office construction near the Point of the Mountain reflects that. According to Brandon Fugal, chairman of Colliers International in Utah, the commercial sector is very healthy, with millions of square feet under construction on both sides of the Point of the Mountain.
Fugal announced a few examples of the huge projects in the works around the Utah County:
- The University Tower project will sit on the Knight Block in downtown Provo. Details on this are still to come.
- University Place in Orem is working on a new 600,000 square-foot office building.
- The former Xactware building near the mouth of Provo Canyon just sold to a local entity.
- The former Ancestry campus in Provo will be sold in the next few days to a cryptocurrency bitcoin operation.
- Innovation Pointe in Lehi, which is 150,000 square feet of office space built on speculation, is already 100 percent leased, with New York-based co-working company WeWork set to occupy a significant portion.
- Evermore is open in Pleasant Grove, and “has the ability to transform this market,” Fugal said.
While all of these exciting projects point to economic success, Clark Ivory, CEO of Ivory Homes, was much more cautious about the area’s ability to house all the people needed to work at these businesses, and also transport them to and from their work and homes.
“We’re going to have a challenge housing all those people Brandon talked about,” Ivory said, explaining that the area has a “critical shortage in housing affordability” across Utah, with a 50,000-unit gap in housing units versus households.
He asked those gathered at the summit to be progressive in their outlook, and work with legislators to create solutions now, even if those solutions are not comfortable ones. Without those, he asserted, community needs like transportation, housing and infrastructure will be much more costly in the coming decades.
Utah County truly has a unique opportunity as it moves forward, said Rona Rahlf, president and CEO of the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce. This moment is vital, Rahlf said.
She encouraged those gathered to be a part of the chamber’s Valley Visioning efforts because “it is important to have a vision that brings residents and stakeholders together,” in a process that establishes a community-supported vision for future growth in Utah County.
“The vision we are creating creates that momentum and excitement in the community,” she said. “Be involved. I can’t stress that enough.”
Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox also encouraged local leaders to get involved in the Valley Visioning effort, put on by the chamber in partnership with Envision Utah. Utah’s success in recent years puts it on the top across the nation, but there are many challenges ahead and important decisions to be made to sustain growth, he said, adding that this is the time to “manage our success in a way that doesn’t bury us.”
“Now we have to get smart about it. Now that we’re on the map, what are we going to do? How are we going to handle it?” he said. “We need good minds.”
The Utah Valley Executive Summit is hosted by the chamber each year.