International mining conglomerate Rio Tinto said Wednesday its Kennecott Land company has broken ground on the first phase of a 45-acre mixed use development within its 4,100-acre Daybreak community.

The $150 million Village Center, which will contain Daybreak's first offices and shops, is set to be built over three years and include 230,000 square feet of office space, 100,000 square feet of retail space, 225 condominiums and townhouses and as many as 300 apartments.

The first phase of Village Center is a three-story 175,000-square-foot office building called Daybreak Corporate Center, set for completion in spring 2008, the company said. It will house Rio Tinto's Salt Lake City operations and lease the remaining space to one or more other companies.

The addition of the commercial development will further Daybreak's live-work philosophy in which people who live in a Daybreak home can walk, run or use a bike to get to work.

"We have quite a few Rio Tinto employees who moved to Daybreak in anticipation of the company moving there," said company spokeswoman Jana Kettering.

The number of people who live and work in Daybreak is expected to jump in the coming years as the community's commercial segment is developed.

"It's a walkable community with more than 35 miles of walkable trails and pathways at completion," she said.

Rio Tinto is the parent company of both Kennecott Land and Kennecott Utah Copper, which operates the largest open-pit copper mine in the world. The company wanted to wait to break ground on commercial development until Daybreak had enough homes to support commercial development before adding offices and shops, Kettering said.

Work on the retail component of Village Center, set to include a grocery store, restaurants and specialty shops, is set to begin later this year, with completion in late 2008. The condos and townhomes that will be part of the mixed-use development also will be built around the same time.

As large as it is, Village Center is only the first of several commercial developments planned for Daybreak. In all, Kennecott plans to add 9.1 million square feet of commercial space in the development.

Tab Cornelison, with Coldwell Banker Commercial in Salt Lake City, sees Daybreak attracting a lot of retail development due to easy access off Bangerter Highway and proximity to a large number of homes going up in the area.

"Retailers have noticed that there's a lot of people out there," he said.

lesley@sltrib.com