Taylorsville »With its aging malls and business centers, this suburb of 60,000 might not seem like a promising place to set up shop.
Rand and Jo Kunz beg to differ.
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Economic boost
Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune
Taylorsville has created an economic development team that focuses on bringing in new companies and revitalizing its existing shopping and business centers.
The team » Mayor Russ Wall, foreground, and, clockwise from lower left, City Administrator John Inch Morgan, City Engineer John Taylor, Marketing and Communications Director Aimee Newton, Economic Development Director Donald Adams, Community Development Director Mark McGrath and Councilwoman Dama Barbour.
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When the two bought a Great Harvest Bread Co. franchise in Taylorsville in 1995, their accountants told them they were foolish because the store was failing. And they weren’t the only ones who said this community was a bad location.
"People said it would never work around here," Rand Kunz said. "We decided to give it a shot. Man, am I glad we did."
Today the store makes more than $1 million in sales a year, Kunz said. He credits Taylorsville itself, which he said was a "sleepy sort of surprise."
"It comes down to the people," he said. "We were embraced by the people in Taylorsville by offering something new and different."
City administrators aren’t surprised by the Great Harvest success. They say Taylorsville is packed with shoppers willing to open their wallets, a factor that they’re touting in an increased effort to entice businesses to come here.
"In this business climate, companies are all about facts and figures before they make a decision," Economic Development Director Donald Adams said.
So officials reel them off.
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By the numbers »With approximately 10 square miles, Taylorsville is the most densely populated city in Utah, with plenty of residents near every shopping center and office building in town.
Taylorsville is right in the middle of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, a place that thousands of people traverse each day and one that contains the busiest surface-street intersection in the state: 5400 South and Redwood Road.
Then there’s Salt Lake Community College, which educates future employees and attracts 20,000 to 25,000 people a day to its Taylorsville campus.
Software that computes the number of consumers within a five-minute drive to a shopping center or a business — and their average income — is a key element in persuading companies that Taylorsville is the place for them. And online tool Taylorsville Prospector helps businesses sort through data, including available buildings and demographics in specific areas, to determine the perfect spot.
Aimee Newton, who was hired in August as Taylorsville’s first marketing and communications director, said the city’s statistics impress business people. The population density, in particular, "knocks their socks off," she said.
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On the hunt »Adams and Newton are part of an economic development team created by Mayor Russ Wall, who said in his State of the City address earlier this year that Taylorsville could end up a bedroom community with "exorbitantly high property taxes" unless it boosts other revenues. The team is seeking businesses that will add sales tax to the bottom line, create new jobs and stay in the community a long time.
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