Draper • Is Utah’s premier land development shifting direction in the face of competition?
Officials guiding the state project known as The Point say they are working on adding of a new wave of homes for sale as they build a mini-city in suburban Salt Lake County, now getting underway along Interstate 15 where the state prison once stood.
Mike Ambre, executive director over the 630-acre public development at Point of The Mountain in Draper, confirmed the agency is in exploratory talks with a private sector partner about grafting another 50-acre residential piece onto the western edge of The Point’s ongoing 100-acre initial phase.
“This wasn’t necessarily part of the original framework plan, but sometimes you have to be able to pivot and understand what really is needed, right?” Ambre said. “And housing, obviously, is needed.”
If approved, the new homes would be a nearer-term addition to more than 3,000 units of multifamily housing already being required of the state’s main contractor on the project, The Point Partners, as that consortium of firms builds out the initial core of the mixed-use community envisioned west of I-15.
News on the housing piece comes as the Point of the Mountain Land Authority seeks to tamp down perceptions that its public development is now fighting uphill against other huge, glitzier and faster-moving projects in the private sector.
Ambre said while the for-sale housing discussion is in early stages and still needs formal state approval, “we’re studying it. That’s the intent. That’s the hope.”
He added that the land authority was coordinating with Gov. Spencer Cox’s housing experts on the best strategies for offering some of those proposed homes for sale at a more affordable level.
A rush of development
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah's public development at The Point in Draper on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.
The Point has long been envisioned to create a dense, mixed-use community spread over those state-owned acres scraped from the former prison site in west Draper for a new compact “15-minute city” amid what is today one of the fastest-growing spots in Utah.
Over the next generation or more, officials see that open land filling out with homes, high-rise office towers, retail areas and a network of lush and pedestrian-friendly green spaces, served by many modes of transit.
That will all sprout alongside a major refresh of part of the Jordan River, according to the state’s design framework, with a first phase of roughly 3,300 apartments and other rental housing units. Nearly 400 of those housing units are to be to kept affordable to Utahns making 80% of the state’s median wage.
At The Point’s core, Utah sees a special research-district-turned-economic-engine growing out of its universities and catalyzing growth for years to come.
Turning point vs. crucial timing
(Point of the Mountain State Land Authority) A rendering of an aerial view of The Point, a public redevelopment project at the site of the now-demolished Utah State Prison in Draper.
Folks with the state’s land authority over The Point have said that 2025 represents a major inflection for the taxpayer-backed development, as decades of painstaking work starts to reflect in vertical buildings and commerce.
Yet, as timing would have it, other massive Salt Lake City developments are hitting crucial strides at the same time.
With some big-ticket government backing of their own, the Larry H. Miller Co. and Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith’s Smith Entertainment Group, which also owns the new Utah Mammoth hockey team, have embarked on developing stadium-centered mixed-use districts with large footprints along North Temple and in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City.
Those districts, too, are to bring substantial housing, large square footages of retail and office space, as well as parking structures and major community amenities built around sports venues. In the case of the Miller-led Power District, that could also mean a new Major League Baseball team.
“I don’t call it competition,” Ambre said, “but there is a lot of development happening at the same time.” And as yet, The Point, he said, did not seem to be losing investors or prospective tenants to other high-profile projects.
Sucking all the oxygen
(The Larry H. Miller Co.) A rendering of the Power District in Salt Lake City. The 100-acre site along North Temple is where the Larry H. Miller Co. has proposed the construction of Major League Baseball stadium.
Venting frustration, another top official overseeing The Point said that recent talks with Utah developers had made clear “all the development oxygen is being sucked out of the room” — namely, by the Power District along North Temple and SEG’s sports and entertainment district around the Delta Center.
That concern, aired by former state Rep. Lowry Snow, a longtime co-chair of the land authority, came amid an exchange with the state’s own hired developers on The Point in early June. Snow warned state officials against moves he said could “handcuff our partners” while other private developers were getting wider leeway.
“The Legislature has bent over backwards to support those projects,” Snow said of state lawmakers’ concessions on planning and taxpayer backing for the SEG- and the Miller-developed districts, “essentially giving them almost whatever they want.”
Snow, a St. George attorney, told colleagues he welcomed those breaks for developers in the name of preserving the vitality of Salt Lake City’s downtown, but he also noted The Point “is important to the state long after those athletic events and those teams are long gone.”
Need for ‘a catalyst’
(The Point Partners) A rendering of a 5,000-seat entertainment venue proposed for The Point, Utah's redevelopment project at the former state prison site in Draper.
The seven-member Point of the Mountain State Land Authority went on to approve key steps in June on issuing $196 million in bonds to finance construction of a new 5,000-seat entertainment venue at The Point. That borrowing will also pay for a large parking structure and what’s to be a central pedestrian feature of the development, known as The Promenade.
The venue and supporting amenities make up the first major portion of The Point’s premium acreage to be approved as its own “sub-campus” since crews finished demolishing the old penitentiary last year and began work on utilities and a key road extensions into the project’s initial 100-acre core.
“Now we need a catalyst,” Snow said at a June 11 meeting, before approving the entertainment venue’s financing mechanism. “It’s the catalyst that makes the money on everything else. We need to move this forward, and we need to do it now.”
If the new housing piece being explored also gets approved, according to Ambre, it could move on a swifter timeline than the rest of The Point’s first phase.
Is The Point truly unique?
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah's public development at The Point in Draper on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.
Others are minimizing the idea that the state’s generational bid at The Point is now up against a significant competitive disadvantage, as other big players actively invest billions in downtown development.
“With Utah continuing to lead the country as the No. 1 place for business, we are fortunate to have several landmark development projects that truly complement each other, with vastly different plans and attributes,” said Brandon Fugal, chair of Colliers International Intermountain, the firm overseeing office leasing at The Point.
The Draper development, Fugal said, is the only one that is state-owned — making it “distinctly differentiated, bringing national attention and generational legacy impact.”
Ambre said he shared that view, noting that The Point was targeting national headquarters relocations by top-tier companies and would have a strong focus on innovation-driven investments through a state-backed hub there, to be called Convergence Hall.
“That’s quite a bit different,” Ambre said, “than the focus of a Ryan Smith project downtown, or even MLB or whatever.”
State Rep. Jordan Teuscher, who also co-chairs the land authority, said The Point, in fact, has a significant leg up on other development projects “because it’s state land.”
The South Jordan Republican pointed to the Legislature’s $165 million loan account to help build new road extensions, water supply and other utilities at The Point — work that made major advances this year. The state expects to earn back that money over time from ground leases.
SEG’s full-court press to renovate the Delta Center and make it the core of a multiblock sports, entertainment, culture and convention district alongside a revamped Salt Palace Convention Center might have a half-a-percentage-point sales tax increase in place to support it, Teuscher said, “but that’s all kind of future spend.”
“We’ve actually taken hard dollars,” he said, “and we’re paying for the infrastructure at The Point and putting up state resources.”
He also highlighted the Legislature’s promise to invest long term in The Point’s innovation hub as an enduring showcase that spurs and lures future business growth.
“None of these other projects,” Teuscher said, “have anything like that.”