Both parties hope the partnership will last for several decades.

"We look at things over a 50- to 75-year time period and try to make long-term decisions. That's our focus," said Jeff Woodbury, a vice president with Woodbury Corp. "Someone once asked if we had an exit strategy on a project. My answer was death."

Woodbury Corp., a family business, was established in 1919. Its handiwork can be seen all over the Salt Lake Valley and neighboring states - Orem's University Mall, Sandy's Highpoint Shopping Center and Murray's Riverview Plaza, to name a few.

Woodbury will be joined by Amsource, another Salt Lake City-based real estate developer, to design and build West Valley's ambitious 200-acre redevelopment project, which emanates from City Hall at 2700 West and 3650 South and will link to the E Center a half-mile away.

"The city has a lot of neat elements," - the E Center, Valley Fair Mall and many existing businesses, said Woodbury. "Our goal is to tie them together and create more synergy. The intermodal center is part of that."

Barry Banks, a transportation consultant formerly with the Wasatch Front Regional Council, has signed on to help the city design its intermodal center, which will accommodate bus rapid transit and light rail by 2012.

Over the next several weeks, city officials will finalize a developer's agreement with Woodbury and Amsource, and narrow design alternatives for the proposed intermodal center.

"When it comes to cities, it's how many visits you get and how long those visits last," Woodbury said of the urban mixed-use space he and city leaders hope to establish.

When asked how the project could span Interstate 215 and still be walkable, Woodbury responded: "I've got some ideas. If it were easy everybody would be doing it," he said. "We could be creating the most unique pedestrian bridge in the world."

cmckitrick@sltrib.com