800 Utah County acres poised for new development

Enterprise, The, Dec 10, 2007 by Rattle, Barbara

Approximately 800 acres straddling Mapleton and Spanish Fork in Utah County are poised for development.

At the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon, five hundred acres owned by The Ensign-Bickford Co., a Simsbury, Conn.-based manufacturer of non-electric explosive initiation systems, are slated to become a mixed-use community with more than 1.4 million square feet of office space and 1,500 residential units. Three hundred acres in Mapleton are scheduled to become Mapleton Village, a residential development with 565 homes of various types.

The Spanish Fork project is a joint venture between EBCo., an arm of Ensign-Bickford, and Provo-based Presidio Capital LLC. The Mapleton acreage, development of which was approved last week by the Mapleton City Council, will be undertaken solely by Presidio Capital. RiverStone Design Group, a Park City land use design firm, is designing both projects.

As envisioned, the Spanish Fork development will be a mixed-use community with an economic development core, community facilities, residential areas and open space. The economic core will contain urban lofts, retail uses and businesses.

"RiverStone Design is focused on making the project Utah's foremost sustainable community," said Todd Ford, president of RiverStone Design. "We are currently exploring the potential for geothermal, wind and solar energy. Other green features will include water conservation, LEED-certified buildings, on-site recycling, integrated stormwater and preserved open space totaling more than 40 percent of the overall project."

Peter Barnett, president of EBCo, said the project's location at the base of Spanish Fork Peak, with views of Loafer Mountain and the entire Utah Valley, "is one of the gems in Utah County."

The as-yet un-named Spanish Fork project, at the intersection of Highways 6 and 89, is planned forproperty on which Ensign-Bickford previously operated an explosives plant. It was shuttered in February of last year amid claims by Mapleton City that it contaminated groundwater. The site is in the final stages of remediation.

"We've been meeting with Spanish Fork officials, basically doing due diligence on infrastructure capacity and the type of zoning that would be appropriate for that type of project," Ford said. "We've been working also with state and local environmental development committees, generating interest from the business community on this site, both locally and out of state. We believe it's a pretty significant development site for the state. We'll continue to plan and continue to work very closely with the city of Spanish Fork and their planners to find the appropriate scale and density of the project based on the city's needs and infrastructure requirements."

He said the plan is to create a fairly dense semi-urban scale environment, "so we're talking structures that would be about five stories high with a real pedestrian-friendly streetscape to create a true urban neighborhood in that area. We believe that's a success for a mixed use project of that scale, to create a real urban environment."

In Mapleton, Presidio Capital has received preliminary plat approval for Mapleton Village, which, as envisioned, will sit on 300 of 700 acres owned by thecompany. The remaining 400 acres, according to company partner Jack Evans, are so mountainous as to be undevelopable and will be deeded to the city.

Ford said Mapleton Village has been designed as a traditional neighborhood with a village setting, grid street pattern, abundant front porches and alley-loaded garages not visible from the street.

"It will have a lot of public parks, a lot of street trees, a lot of sidewalks," he said. "Traditional architecture in that the front porches will be a little bit more based on historic architecture with a contemporary flair. It will be pretty equally mixed single-family detached of various sizes. Probably the smallest single-family detached would be on a 5,000 square foot lot, all the way up to three-quarters of an acre lots on the back of the property on the rolling hills. There are also town-homes and condominiums in the project."

Evans said it remains to be seen whether Presidio Capital will develop the Mapleton lots and sell them, or build the homes in the projects as well.

Presidio Capital, he said, was formed three years ago with three other partners when Evans moved back to Utah from the San Francisco area, where he worked for an investment bank. To date, he said, the company has completed projects in St. George and in Mesquite, Nev., that were sold to builders.