City Council greenlights Provo Towne Centre redevelopment project
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- The Provo Towne Centre as seen Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Provo.
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- Renderings of the Provo Towne Centre redevelopment project.
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- Renderings of the Provo Towne Centre redevelopment project.
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- The Provo Towne Centre as seen Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Provo.
The Provo City Council voted to approve the Provo Towne Centre Mall redevelopment project Tuesday, allowing Brixton Capital to move forward with its plans to turn the struggling indoor mall into a mixed-use complex with housing, retail and dining options.
The California-based real estate investment company intends to revitalize a mall that has seen massive losses in foot traffic and revenue in the past decade by creating a development that offers a potential on-site customer base while attracting new visitors with its new indoor-outdoor amenities.
The approval completed a lengthy process in which the council and developer went back-and-forth on specific items over the course of several months. The council voted to approve a concept plan, zoning map and general plan amendments through a series of 5-1 votes in favor. Councilwoman Becky Bogdin voted no, and councilman Craig Christensen was absent.
“Something needs to be done to save the mall,” Councilman Jeff Whitlock said during Tuesday’s meeting. “Otherwise, the reality is that if we don’t do anything and we just stay the course, what’s going to happen is we’re going to see a blighted area.”
The approved concept plan calls for five apartment buildings with a total of 1,300 units. The developer will later apply to designate the area as a Housing and Transit Reinvestment Zone, or HTRZ, which requires 12% of units to be sold below area median income levels.
On the site of the existing Shady Acres Mobile Home Park, Brixton Capital will build 77 for-sale townhomes. The mall itself is expected to retain three main tenants, Cinemark, J.C. Penney and Target, and offer additional retail in an indoor-outdoor, walkable environment.
A number of changes were made to the concept plan since it was originally proposed. Brixton Capital Project Executive Justin Long said they added a safer drop-off zone next to the roundabout at the mall’s main entrance, raised the crosswalks and added bike lanes. Proposed parking and access space were also converted into proposed green space.
Residents forced to relocate from Shady Acres will be given 18 months’ notice by the developer and a $10,000 relocation fee.
“We’ve been working on this for a couple years, but over the last six months to a year, we’ve engaged with a lot of community members,” Long said. “We’ve engaged with (the council) in work sessions, taken a lot of feedback from all those various stakeholders, and incorporated it into a new proposal that we think recognizes a lot of those elements.”
The project generated support from a handful of public commenters who attended the meeting. Provo resident Rob Slater said he’s tired of going to Orem to find good retail and hopes the redevelopment boosts the East Bay neighborhood.
“I think we’d all agree, the mall as it is is somewhat of a fossil,” Slater said. “And to see such a robust mixed-use project in south Provo, I think it would just really, really help the whole area. I think we will see a lot more growth in the area and a lot more activity economically.”
Rocky Mountain University President Dr. K. Martin spoke in favor of the project, saying it will redevelop “a depressed area of Provo” while offering students at RMU and Nordic College of Osteopathic Medicine housing close to their south Provo campuses.
“Currently, there is no such housing option for our over 2,500 students combined and growing,” Martin said. “These are the types of units that will be very amendable and accessible to them.”
Concerns about transportation were brought up during public comment. Provo resident Alana Bastian asked that the bike lanes are protected, and Ian Kilpatrick said the existing UVX station near the mall is not in a convenient spot and suggested it be moved or that a new station be added.
During council member discussion, Bogdin, the dissenting voter, said she was worried about the proposal being less of a commercial project and more of a housing project. She said she wanted there to be more retail and that the plan had a lot of density away from the city center.
“This is by far not the perfect mesh,” Bogdin said.
Councilwoman Katrice MacKay said Provo struggles to attract quality retail because the city has a low median household income and that the housing being built will not improve that. She said she hopes revitalizing the mall would bring some of those businesses and acknowledged that something had to be done.
“I remember when that mall was cool, but it was so short-lived,” MacKay said. “So I hope that we can have a longer success rate on this.”
Regarding the mobile home park, Gary Garrett said he appreciated the developer’s decision to offer residents the moving allowance and suggested those residents be given a chacne to buy the available HTRZ housing.
Whitlock echoed Garrett’s suggestion and said there are other services the city will work to help the mobile home park residents access. He said, though, that the concerns should not force the council to say no to the whole project.
For Brixton Capital, the largest city-approval hurdle has been cleared, though it will later return to the Planning Commission for site plan approval.
