City Council · 2026-09-28

All right, I'd like to welcome you to this, um, joint Orem-Provo City Council meeting on this date, September 28th, 2026. What I'd like to do is go ahead and start with introductions. So, if we'll— I'll go introduce myself and then I'll go this way. And then once we get back to where I am, we'll go back here. And if you can make— well, I know I'd like to excuse our city manager, Brian Bybee, and Councilmember Quinn Meekum. So, I'm Karen McMillis, and I am the mayor of the city of Warren.

Marsha Judkins, provost mayor. Jen Gale, Orem City Council.

Jeff Lamson, Orem City Council.

Crystal Mielstein, Orem City Council.

Therese McKittrick, City Recorder. Pete Woffley, Orem City Communications.

Ezra Nair, the Executive Director for the City Council.

Jerry Dirks, Public City Council.

Thank you, Martin. Angel McCall, Public City Council.

Therese McKenna. Millett.

Eric Bowen, Orem Engineering. Here we begin, Orem Community. Maurice Merrill, Orem Community Services. BJ Robinson, Police Chief. Steve Earl, Orem City Attorney.

Garrett Anderson, Economic Development.

Jennifer Jones, Director of Strategy and Innovation.

Sean Hirsch, Assistant Fire Chief.

Jake Summers, Deputy City Attorney. Fred Jurkey, Public Works Director.

And we just have a new— another one of our Provo Council members. If you— Jeff, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself.

Jeff Whitlock, Provo City Council.

All right, welcome to everybody. As someone who does not like 100-degree weather, this weather that we're having is lovely, and I hope that you're enjoying a little bit cooler weather as well out there. We have 5 items on our agenda today, and our first item is a discussion about the dispatch contract update, and our presenters— I don't see the presenters here yet. Oh, there's Jake. Oh, okay. Carrie Rugg, our Deputy City Manager, she's online, and Jake Summers, our Deputy City Attorney, will be, uh, discussions.

Carrie, are you here?

I am. Can you guys hear me okay? Yeah, okay, perfect. Uh, this agenda item was brought forward from the Provo City Council, and so we'll just give you the update from our perspective and happy to answer any questions that you all might have as far as this transition goes. We met with Mayor Judkins and several of her administrative staff last week, and we feel like we're in a pretty good spot right now as it comes to the transition from Orem and Linden moving away from dispatch services with Provo City and Metro to Central Dispatch, and we will be making that transition on March 31st, 2027. And if any date sooner possible that Central can take us, we would be happy to enter into that. But March 31st, 2027 will be the date that we move over to Central Dispatch. Jake, do you have anything to add?

No, I thought our meeting last week was pretty productive as far as where we're trying to make sure that this transition is successful both for Provo And for OAR moving forward.

We got that contract ready to go today, probably.

Okay.

All right.

Does anybody have any questions about, about the dispatch of the celebration of the— Carrie or Jake can answer.

Yeah, so March 31st is, is pretty late.

It's too bad they can't accommodate earlier.

Hard thing to break up. We want to be out. Yeah, yeah, yep. So that's— I don't know if you want to talk about—

So we've been in negotiations with Central Utah, um, for a while. Part of it is we are subject to other board members wanting us to join, so subject to their voting in other cities and counties that have to allow for us to attend. Our calls, and then there are also third parties, uh, private entities that also have to be involved. making that switchover. So it's just part of that timeline to, to make that transition so seamless.

So are the, the approvals in place from those board members, and we're just now doing the logistics of the third-party things to make it happen?

Yeah, so we've been officially voted in, uh, made that transition. Thank you. Uh, we'll make that move no later than March 31st, is what has been the So, uh, Central Utah 911 will continue to try to make that transition sooner than March 31st, but they've committed that it will be no later than 31st.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions? All right, well, thank you. Thank you. All right, any other— There's a partner cities overview, and Carrie Rugg will still be part of this discussion, and Jenica Jones, who is OREM's Strategy and Innovation Director, will be here in the room leading the discussion.

First, Carrie, anything you want to say, or you just want me to dive in?

No, we're just really excited to present this to Provo as a whole to see your thoughts on this innovative idea.

Hi. So yeah, today we're just here to talk about this partnership proposal. This is something we talked about in our city council session last week in Orem. And it's an idea that, you know, as cities, we face a lot of similar challenges. If we are in Provo, other cities, we have to provide services to our residents. It's a lot of similar challenges and opportunities. And is there a better way to utilize that network and relationship than learn from each other, collaborate, grow, provide better services, programs to our residents and things like that? We know that every city is unique. Orem has a lot of differences from Provo, but there's also a lot of overlap that we share a lot of similarities in terms of like university population, economic environment, demographic, things like this. So our idea is to look at, you know, what cities face similarities and how can we learn from each other. So the benefits of this initiative are that we believe it can lead to significant time and money savings. We have Staff and elected officials in both of our cities and in every city spending a lot of time researching and implementing new ideas and policies and programs. Can we make that more efficient and better learn from each other at the outset of when we're trying to solve these challenges and problems to avoid maybe some pitfalls or expensive mistakes that other cities have made? Another thing, improved benchmarking. My team in Orem, we spend a lot of time looking at how does Orem allocate resources, staff, time, money, and how do other cities do it. But this will enhance that, make it easier to, you know, see how different cities are doing things and find those opportunities for potential improvement or change. And a stronger legislative voice as well. As cities, we operate in an environment where we have to deal with maybe demands or mandates from state, federal government, and sometimes there's systemic issues that we can uncover to better strengthen that legislative voice and advocate for change that can help our cities at that state and federal level for solutions. So, in looking at this, we started trying to think about how do we figure out, like, what cities might be best suited to this partnership? So we initially evaluated 22 cities in the Western United States. We wanted to make it a comprehensive list to look at, you know, How can we make this as effective as possible? So we initially looked at cities with a similar population, demographics, or culture, maybe university presence, and then we dove down and looked at a lot of different metrics for each of these cities. So ultimately, we wanted to figure out an objective way to score the cities and determine who's the most similar. How can we determine, you know, who may be the best fit for this in an objective way? So we weighted— we scored each city on all these criteria here. So population size and young families were weighted the most heavily in the model because we feel that that's really critical to the services that a city provides and the resources they have access to, the types of programs that they provide to their residents. We also looked at voter demographics, college landscape, built-out status, and then we also factored in affordability and metro size because all of those factors determine, you know, resources a city has access to and how they do things. And so based on this, from those 22 cities, we were able to kind of create some tiers of cities that scored the most similar. So from our model, the Tier 1, the ones that scored the most similarly, was Orem, Provo, Lehi, and Ogden. And then still scoring very high was Layton, and then outside of the state, Kennewick and Spokane Valley in Washington, Nampa in Idaho, and Sparks, Nevada. So again, this is just based on that criteria. This is our initial proposal at trying to figure out cities facing similar challenges. We also looked at, you know, issues that they're facing, what similarities there may be there. So we did see a lot of similarities between all these cities. Obviously, we know they don't all score super high on everything. They're not all a university city, but they— Have a lot of other similarities. So that's where we landed there. And as far as moving forward, what we see this looking like is really just a network, an information sharing way that cities can get together and work through, you know, maybe one city has had a successful program in one of these areas, and they can share that knowledge with another city, or we can all work together on any of these issues. So this is just kind of a broad list, but we'd love your input on the issues that are listed here, or if there's other issues that you might see would be valuable to add to this type of network.

So just to clarify, you're not looking at necessarily like a formal board, but a network of partner cities that might meet occasionally to—

Yeah. To share ideas and formally meet, maybe informally Yeah, it could be, yeah, just a couple cities meeting at times because they have a shared interest or program, but then other times there's things that affect everyone broadly and there may be— there would be regular informal or formal gatherings, mostly virtual, especially if we have out of state. So, okay.

Any thoughts, questions?

Did you have a question or—

So Provo's government is structured differently than yours. And so it looks like what you're mostly wanting to collaborate with is the administrative side of the government, not us.

I mean, yes, in some ways I think there's overlap of like if the elected side feeds down into the administrative.

The policy we set, yes. But as far as if you're looking at what we're doing And maybe if what this is not working on our side, that would diminish us unnecessarily. Yes, because we don't really get into that day-to-day stuff, right? And so I think that's more of a conversation to have with Marcia.

We don't really get into that day-to-day stuff too. Our staff does. Our staff does it, then they consult with us for direction. That's kind of a little different. All of the different forms of zoning. I think maybe where our overlaps would be code enforcement, housing issues, parking issues. I mean, I guess I, I, maybe you guys don't do parking, or you probably do vote on neighborhood parking. We're like, that's a problem everywhere. I guess that's the way I see the overlap is maybe some of those resident-centered Cities. And I guess from what Jenica's saying, these cities are more demographic from those comparisons. But I see what you're saying from administrative edge or angle. We're not that involved in it either. The city council, only to the point that the staff will bring up an issue. And your direction. That answer.

Yeah, and I think we're just kind of here to see if Global sees any value in it. I think so. So we're just kind of here to bounce this idea off of you and see if there's any value in it.

I love your research and Great concept. The cities that you've compared, I like the possible topics and do see the advantage of leveraging some of these.

And often our staff is also involved in working with neighboring cities to see what we can learn.

I would, I would only want to look at this side by side with services currently provided by ULCT, make sure that we are identifying those areas that ULCT might not be covering?

Yeah.

And what can we do as a partnership that ULCT isn't doing in another— not right.

Yeah, but they're exactly— yeah, but a lot of the cities scored very high. We're in Utah, and so maybe it's something we can add on or enhance or utilize. Exactly. Some of these—

Jeff, were you gonna— did I see your hand?

I was gonna ask similar question of like, did you see the collaboration as being between city councils themselves or being primarily staff?

I think both. I think there would be a spot for, you know, councils to collaborate with each other on that, those broad policymaking strategies, and then some of it would be more the department dealing with this.

Relationships. You see this being formal to the point where there would be like dues required, or just kind of—

I don't think dues. It would be, yeah, just information sharing. Yeah.

Yeah, just for instance, neighborhood preservation and revitalization. I didn't know that in, in some areas of your city, and that's something that we're Trying to do better with. And so we're hoping that maybe we could learn from you what you've done in that process to preserve those— some of those older neighborhoods and breathe new life into them. And so, you know, just a spirit of, hey, what did you do that worked? And what did you do that didn't work to help us in the process as we go down that road to make sure that we're Efficient, um, those processes, and maybe look, you know, looking for, uh, you know, hiccups and things along the way that maybe we wouldn't have thought of or seen before that you've already experienced. And vice versa, maybe there are some things that you might be looking at that we've had some experience with that we could share— high points, low points, things to watch out for, uh, as you, you know, continue down that road. So, so more of, I guess, wanting to be good neighbors, help each other out and navigate some sometimes tricky situations.

Well, yeah, it would be interesting to see exactly what you are thinking here. I feel like we're always open to talking about any of these things, right? Like, if you had questions about any of these things, I think Always be more than happy to talk about it. And something I, you know, we, we like to look and see what's working in other cities also. So not sure exactly what formalizing this would look like. But I mean, honestly, I, it's always best to share best practice and to see what's working in other places. And collaborate.

And I can maybe share a little background of what— where this came from that might be helpful. And as the City Council, we meet every January in a retreat, and one of the topics that we discussed were our sister city relationships that we have, and— or in this case had— that, for example, we had a sister city relationship with a city in another country, and the city's population just the city's population was larger than almost the state of Utah's population. I mean, it was like millions. It had nothing— there was nothing in common in a variety of areas. And we get— and I know as cities, we get invitations to have sister city relationships with different other cities in the world, in the country. And that distilled into a discussion of, well, what cities in our part of the country, in our part of the world, share common issues. And so I hope that's helpful. That's how we came and we asked the strategy— strategies innovation team to come and put this together, just examine at least the western United States. So not just that we have sister city relationships, uh, in other places, but what can— what relationships can we develop In our— that include people in other cities that share some of the same problems, some of the challenges, some of the opportunities that we do. So that's how it came to be. Is that— is my memory correct, Council, on that? Okay.

Yeah, I just had a question maybe to your point. I think Mayor Judkins asked, like, what would it look like to formalize it? You know, so maybe you can speak to that a little bit.

Yeah, so it really depends. You know, we haven't talked to all the cities yet to know exactly who ends up being involved, but it's really just scheduling, making that a routine thing that, you know, maybe quarterly or something there's some of these meetings happening. So we appreciate and we know that we have learned from you and many other cities. Let's just make it more of a formal, you know, routine thing that we're doing.

But it doesn't preclude just me getting on the phone with— Not at all. Or with, with Catrice and saying, okay, what's So what are you guys doing? I mean, as far as how to deal with this.

Yes, definitely do that, right? Like, whenever we're doing new policy, our staff follows up with your staff and we get your comparisons. So what are you doing about your roads, or what are you doing about water? Like, you know, we get stats, we compare the city— the cities that you listed for the state ones are the same ones that we use as our comparisons usually. The national ones are a little different than ours, but Yeah, I mean, we definitely already do that, and that's important, right? Because everything we look at, even when we look at taxes or where we rate on things, whether it's our utilities or—

what were we looking at the other day? We looked at one the other day that was sales tax. Yeah, no, we are way under you in sales tax. But so, like, we look at to compare those things. So. Yeah, and I'm curious, like, what these meetings would look like. Like, would you have an agenda? Order, we are going to talk about code enforcement. We're going to give everybody 5 minutes to present their challenges and problems, and then we're going to do kind of a roundtable discussion, or like, I, I don't know what this looks like or how it would be structured. So it would be— Useful. I like the idea of being able to, to share what's working here. We're frustrated with so that we have an opportunity for other people to pop in with Their solutions. I think the real advantage of it is building relationships, right? So our development services and zoning offices building relationship with others so they can see those different strategies. Although I will note that even knowing best practices and things that work in other places doesn't necessarily mean that there would be appetite to implement those solutions. Right. Sure. Um, which could end up being frustrating to people who are like, but this was a good idea. I share— I shared that also in our city when this was presented in our city council meeting. And for me, my level of comfort is— and this is kind of a— I haven't mentioned this out loud, but, you know, maybe we take the AI comparisons of your, your policies, our policies. They see how More objective. And when I say AI, the only reason I say that— who knows if you want to use that— but so we're dealing from a point of objectivity, of comparing programs, and of suggestions. So we're not creating a board that then is, to your point, putting pressure on, well, this is the best idea, so your city should be doing this. I think the perspective— Absolutely. When he discussed it, This is just to that point. We're going to come up with ideas, and then there's the independence of our city councils and our city governments to then choose what they want to. But, you know, unlike environmental issues, one of our planners is kind of our environmental sustainability specialist, and she's in a conference, right? And she's got this network, and she's able to bounce ideas off of them, get opportunities for grants. things like at that actually getting stuff done level, it's really, really useful. And so to create a club of similarly situated cities could, could be really good for the people who are working in our cities.

But again, that's, you know, administrative. They would jump to want to buy in on that. That's something as a council we They do. Our staff, he said, already do that.

But we're—

you know how it is, your legislative opportunities to do things sometimes are this and you're all— we're administrative, they're in the day-to-day and they're just large.

And that's an important point.

I just want to make sure that everybody knows that our form of government is rare in Utah. And sometimes apples— it's just not apples to apples. It's very different.

So I feel like city council has a lot of power with land use and zoning.

That was about what I was expecting. And then I'll say ours particularly is rare. There's only, what, 6 cities, and our form of government is not allowed anymore. in the state of Utah. Yeah. So yes, we do have that commonality, I guess, whether we like it or not. Do we know what they have in those other cities?

Um, yes, I don't have it right here, but we did look at that, and there's a variety outside of Utah. This city manager form is a lot more common than, uh, but there was a, a variety between these because we knew, you know, even us, we don't have the same form. So there's some value in having Yeah.

Can you go back to your evaluation criteria when looking at peer cities?

Not to like— you did all this work, but to me, one of the most important variables in looking at cities is limited geographic space.

So, because I really think, like, when you look at the challenges we're going to deal with over the next 2, 3, 4 decades, that is the problem Orem's going to face. That's the problem is going to face, that's very different than a city that just has unlimited farmland, like I'm sure that Nevada City does. Very, very different because you can't use greenfield growth to fund your existing liabilities. So anyway, that's just a thought that I'd throw out there.

Well, I mean, we did factor in growth. So like, what's their current to projected 2050 population as sort of a proxy for that to figure out? Yeah, is this city at the beginning stages of growth? They have a lot more A lot different of opportunities on the pipeline versus us that we're a lot more restricted in what we can do.

Yeah, I just think that, like, figuring out redevelopment and infill development is just a categorically different beast than growth.

And I think that's what you mean when you talk about similar built-out status. I mean, that feels to me like what you're describing. We don't have that much more space to grow, so we're going to have to look at what we have now. What can we do with it kind of an idea?

And I don't know about you, but for our city, that's a more political topic. that I hope these guys don't necessarily engage in. Oh, it's political and problematic.

So, it's the reality we deal with.

So, it is. But for me, that's not the kind of topic that we're looking for here, because the political swings can change common sense to other things, right? But—

I know what you're saying, because there are a couple of cities on there. For example, there's— I saw Greeley. Colorado. I mean, they could grow clear to Nebraska. That mean if they—

in theory, Nevada and the Nevada cities.

He's laughing because he's from— not Preeti, he's from near that area. Yeah, that they just have infinite— infinite.

But yeah, here I am.

All right, it's Crystal.

Jenica, could you speak to what it looks like for, um, each city to participate?

So would it be like one city council member and one person who are going to be administrative?

So like What does it look like to have them participate? I think that's a lot of the questions of what this looks like. Is it just city council members, or is it broader than that?

Yeah, we were thinking that it would be kind of one city council or elected official and one administrative member, so they can try to— you know, each city has a say in determining the focus areas for these meetings, essentially, so that every city has a say. Or say, and they can share either their programs, concerns, successes. So that's kind of what we were thinking, and then others would be invited to the broader meetings. But really, that's who would help set and plan and coordinate.

So like, if we were talking about roads and transportation issues, then each city could invite—

Exactly.

Or that, or whatnot.

So if you're looking to see, like, Provo, I would recommend mayor and a councilman.

Okay.

Because sometimes when we get into these, these things, the differences are just vast. And we get one elected official, and, you know, it's just— we're 2 separate forms. So you're going to need one from the legislative branch and one from the administrative.

And then would you also want somebody else administrative that's staff? Sending as well, like the street, what I'm hearing.

If there's— depending on what the discussion—

well, if you're talking about what— with your example, the roads and infrastructure. Uh, here's the engineer. All right. Well, anything else before we wrap this item up? Thank you, Jenica. Thank you, Carrie. All right, our next item is, um, Lakeview Parkway expansion status update, and our presenter is Taggart Bowen, Orem City Engineer.

Hi, I'm Taggart Bowen, Orem City Engineer. I was asked to provide an update on Lakeview Parkway project. So any questions? Just have a couple slides. Just to orient us there, we have University Parkway right here, I-15. The green area here is Geneva Road. And the current widening project that UDOT's doing right now is a green line from University Parkway down to this area right here, just south of the temple. They originally planned to do this entire piece. Because of lack of funding and inability to acquire all the right-of-way, they decided to cut that project basically in half. So they are now winding from Parkway to this area, and then this other green area here was left out. Blue areas are— Orem project, it's MAG funded, so we're on the hook for 6.77% of that project. Forum— or sorry, Provo. I believe this project was 2 years ago. It's 2 years ago. So that's been a nice road there that we're— as we've been in coordination with that project with Provo City staff. And the red is the current alignment of Lakeview Parkway. To give you an update on right-of-way, the blue up here in the top piece, there's the property, the parcels that UDOT acquired. Create this little triangle there on the Johnson property. Orem has acquired all the area in green. And the good news is we recently acquired just in the last 2 weeks the Skipton parcel, which was a big chunk right here at the bottom. Now connects to Provo. So there are a few— if you look right here, there's some little red areas there that we do have 3 or 4 owners left. The biggest one is the Byron Taylor piece, which is this pink-magenta line there. We'll be acquiring right-of-way for a storm drain easement. Right. And so that's the biggest challenge here with, with the project is acquiring that easement. And then there is a little gap there that is also something we're working through with the Taylors. And then there's a few other owners that just have slivers that we're working with. They're ready to go as soon as we have that last chunk. They're ready to sign.

The last chunk meaning? The easement.

The purple?

Yeah, this one right here. So we currently have This is called the Taylor Drain Line. It's an existing 24-inch. We have a 10-foot on that line, but the field— part of the new design is a 60-inch line. So we move the alignment to get it out of that field further south, and that would require a new easement, and then all the way out to Utah Lake.

So how close did that take?

Uh, it's currently in— legal is reviewing. We have a draft stormwater easement that we've been going back and forth with Byron's attorney, and it's moving pretty slow. We've been working on this for a few years at least.

Could you elaborate just a little bit on Paul's Lane about all that you said? There were several little pieces right there. As I recall in our conversations, That there's no— there's no owner that can be found. Isn't that correct? And it's trying to figure out a bunch of little— you can see how that all— it has little— has lots of—

This is Geneva Road right here. These are the pieces UDOT acquired to create this little triangle that you're just looking at. This is the Lakeview Parkway alignment. The piece Mayor's talking about is this little gap right here that is referred to as Paul's Lane that Byron Taylor will use to move his equipment back. He has farming operations on this side of Geneva, and then this big chunk here, he's got a locked gate there that he'll use to get back and forth. Yeah.

And that needs to be acquired, right?

The piece that needs to be acquired is this piece right here. It's kind of an L-shape.

It's just a little guy. Basically, yeah, that road piece.

Where is it? Mark, where is it down to that? So, yeah, there's just that piece, and then there's the stormwater easement that goes through Brian's property.

So an estimate, you know, Geneva Road is a really big point for investors, and something like this going all the way through would— you guys have an estimate?

I had a crystal ball, I would be able to say that right now. Um, we're hopeful that we can work something out. Like I said, it's been a long time that we've been working with him back and forth and kind of have ups and downs, and, and we're just trying to work through that.

And the Johnson piece— Mandy Johnson?

Cheryl.

Cheryl. Cheryl Johnson. That was this piece right here.

This is Cheryl Johnson?

Yeah, there's a few Johnsons.

Everybody's related over there. Oh, yeah.

So some of the challenge with this Paul's Lane is that no ownership is shown, but there's a prescriptive easement or an access easement that farmers have used for 100 years to access all those west fields. So there's multiple interests in it and tried to— there's also a family legacy tied to it because Paul is Byron's father or grandfather. I can't remember which one that it's named after. Yes, I think we traced it back. We were doing some genealogy searches to try and figure this out, but there's like a Lloyd K. Taylor, and there's all— I— all be— there's multiple generations. Just from a title standpoint, it's a mess. We've had title research done.

Our city attorney Steve might be able to add some clarity to this as to our next steps, but Right now we're just trying to iron it out with an agreement, and quite frankly, we're at the liberty of firing until he's willing to come to terms with us, or else we may have to pursue other action at that point.

But we haven't had that conversation with the counsel yet, if there's other methods we want to pursue.

Is that safe to say, Steve? Yeah, public meeting.

Yeah.

Any other questions on this?

Can I make one comment just to y'all? Um, I attended the, um, unveiling of Officer Joseph Shinners Memorial Boulevard. He is the nephew of my sister-in-law, so I want to just say, for your work on that, That was just beautiful to see. I don't know if you remember Officer Shinners was killed in pickup, and with his little son. Is that what I think? He's there. Um, my family was very close to that. Um, so thank you. That was beautiful. And it's bringing tears to my eyes right now. Thank you for your witness. Thanks, Liz.

All right, thank you.

Can I ask a question about this real quick?

Sure.

So are we— I mean, it could be 10 years, it could be 3 years, like we just have no inkling.

Well, maybe you can speak to the funding aspect. TIGER funding available right now, or is it in 2 years?

The funding is, uh, what was awarded was $14.7 million. And then when we hired, we hired JUB to put together the design, the estimate, and it came into just over 20 to 21.

So you have that shortage, we'll need to— we have some other MAG projects that we could do a shuffle game and try and figure that out. But MAG has also told us they're not going to hold that funding for— Yeah, what did you— do you have an expiration date? Like, what is— what are they saying you need to have it done by?

Soon. Haven't given us a date. They just have expressed that to us. There's a concern there that it can't sit there forever.

So are you— so that's— you're forever dependent on someone agreeing to sell it?

That's kind of open to discussion here, right?

Yeah, those options we'll, we'll be examining as we work with the property owner, uh, through the process of acquiring this Property. There are several options open to us. One of the constraints we have is the MAG funding. I don't anticipate the MAG funding extending beyond 2 years. And so that's kind of a hard deadline for us that we'll be having discussions internally as administrative staff and with the council about viable next options on this.

Is this something that's important to Orem or not as much as Provo?

It's important to Orem. It's probably more important to Provo.

But from that standpoint, we want it done. We don't want to drag this out any longer. We're— how long have we been working on this tagger? Over 10 years? I can't remember. We're ready to move on to other projects, so we really want to get it done.

Latest big win was that skip done.

Yeah, we—

that one last month or so, that was a big deal.

Virtually hard to get the skip done.

And we have been throwing ideas out at Byron. We've been working with him for years. We've been making progress, and then it just stops. And so we're, we're trying different ideas, and as long as we're progressing, I don't think the MAG funding's in danger anywhere. They, they're wanting to work with us and get this done too. And we, and we do have a working draft going back and forth between our attorney and their attorney right now, so there is some progress being made. Whether one particular over the finish line is— I don't know.

Just from West Provo's side, please do it as soon as possible. It will be a game changer, even though it is clear far west of where Geneva Road is. It's a game changer.

Yeah, I use the Provo Airport, so I—

We want to be a good regional partner, and so We're working hard on it. It's— there's right now, there's some steps. We're aware as a council, we have the different options available to us, but we want to work through some other things before we get to some of the other options. And we're just— and also with the staff advising us as well. But yes, it's very important.

I mean, just from a residential point of view, it's Geneva Road and the freeway backs up. It's just— it's a mess and there's limited access. And to have that second opportunity, it's just amazing.

And one thing to keep in mind is we can build our stretch, but UDOT still has to do the other stretch of Geneva Road. And so we'll be dependent on UDOT for when that phasing will happen. And I don't— do we have a date on that, Tagger? Did they even throw any funding at that yet or schedule the date? What is this piece here?

I think we're in the same boat for our section. We're going way more slow. That's why we need so much— this really wants to get that secondary access up there.

Yeah, once—

can you go back and show the whole thing?

We're hoping once it's stubbed out that then the pressure will be on UDOT to finish it off, because we'll have a road to nowhere at that point. It's a dead end. And at least now we have 2000 connecting. We won't even have that.

You see where it ends right there?

This will take traffic out of our neighborhood, so it is very important to us to put that through.

So all we have are those 2 single slits.

Could you show the color one again?

I have one of these pages that's totally against it, but, um, this one, oppositionality. But yeah, it needs to be done.

Yes, we do have that connection on 2000 that goes out to Lakeview Parkway. We do right now that I think, you know, pretty good for us. I live on that side. I live right over there.

Yeah, and it is working very well. There's, there's a lot of traffic that cuts over there. I don't think it's as well known as Too many other than those that—

which is actually part of the feedback we're getting from our neighbors is the heavy traffic on 2000 a little farther. That's east, that's not west. So there's not a whole lot on west. Yeah. But I mean, they're cutting through Sand Hill to there to get over to— why?

Oh, who's doing that?

There's just people who are going to where? Like 2,000 south.

What are they trying to—

airport?

I'm not sure where they're trying to go. I've just— I've sat there and watched the traffic, and it's—

I think that there is traffic that cuts over there, but I don't think you get to— I mean, we can talk about it later, but there's traffic. I know that there's problems on Sand Hill Road getting up to Grandview and stuff like that, that they cut across there, and I know residents don't like that. But to go west there, there's like almost no West, West Road, right?

I'm talking the east side, especially with those, those subdivisions that are going in. Yeah, on the way east side there by Sand Hill.

All right, if there isn't any more discussion, we'll move on to our final item, and that is a discussion about economic development tools.

Street safety infrastructure.

Oh, whoops. Oh, I got ahead of myself. I'm sorry, Chris. Sorry. Is Vern— I haven't seen Vern. I haven't seen Vern either. Okay, welcome, Chris. Chris Shirkey is our Public Works Executive Director. You'll be leading a discussion on street safety infrastructure. I checked it off before you talked about it, so I apologize.

Thank you, Mayor.

Nothing personal.

Um, I'm— it's a pleasure to be here with both city councils. So thank you for this opportunity and time that we have to talk a little bit about traffic calming, traffic safety, all things traffic. We have in Orem what we call a traffic tiger team. It's similar to what Provo has. I don't know if any of you are aware, maybe you are, there's a term that Vern shared with me— whoops. At the beginning of this, I wanted to mention it to you, and that is, TOA has what's called the PEPs committee. PEPs committee, which stands for Parking, Engineering, Police, and Streets. That committee is very similar to what we call our ORM Traffic Tiger Team. They meet every month. We meet about every 2 weeks. And essentially, both committees Uh, have similar, or pretty much the same, uh, uh, membership representing the city staff. We have 4 representatives from Public Works, myself, John Dorney, a former transportation engineer, myself, former transportation engineer, Taylor Forbush, traffic operations engineer, Bill Streets, our streets manager, and then Taggart just presented. I don't— There he is right there.

Taggart's on this, um, as our city engineer. Blake Finn represents police, so please shoot And then fire, it's Derek Spencer, our fire division chief. So we have— it's pretty diverse. Tiger teams are basically developed to help basically resolve problems quickly and promptly, usually challenging issues from a wide variety of perspectives. We have those that enforce. We have those out there every day that See what's happening in real time. And so we take that feedback and, and, uh, review whatever the challenges are, they might be, and then propose plans to address those if there is use. Our guiding documents include the ORM Transportation Master Plan, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, and then AASHTO, which is the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials. They have 2 documents that we Use regularly. That's the AASHTO guide for the development of bicycle facilities. And then also they have what's called the Green Book, or Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets. ITE has a trip generation manual. Then we also look at the Utah State Code and the Orem City Code. These are our guiding documents, I would say. So if you were going to compare these to, like, building safety, they use the International Building Code, or fire, they use the International Fire Code.

We use these documents as our guiding documents when we're making these decisions regarding traffic calming and safety and so forth. So the purpose of the MUTCD, I want to hit this specifically. The MUTCD has established that it's a uniform national criteria that's used for traffic control devices that meet the needs and expectancy of road users of all streets, highways, pedestrian, bicycle facilities, and site roadways. Open travel. So basically, these are national guidelines that every state is compelled to use and put out by the Federal Highway Administration. City of Orem, and I believe City of Provo, have adopted the MUTCD as their guiding document for making sure that we are using uniform traffic control devices throughout the city. I wanted to give you some background on this and give you some examples of some of the things that we're doing to help with traffic safety, pedestrian safety in Orem.

I know Provo does these as well. Over the last 5 years, this committee has been meeting about every 2 weeks to review input from a variety of— So we have the public, you know, give us the greatest amount of input here. That's about 70%. City council members give us about 20% of the feedback and inputs. City staff's about 5%.

And then neighboring cities, including the school district, ASD, is about 5% as well. And, and really, I would say that the public is, is, is the one that drives a lot of this. They feed through the council quite a bit as well. And we have a help center that receives calls much like yours in Provo, and then they're assigned to different groups. We, we typically receive all the requests regarding anything that's going on in the city with respect to Highway or geometric road alignments, or traffic, or traffic calming, or speeding, or pedestrian safety, crosswalks, so forth. That all gets funneled to us. Then we review it together. We oftentimes will visit the site, or we'll look at on Google Maps or otherwise. And then when we deem necessary, then we'll go out and, and counters and Do analytics and look at empirical data and use our best judgment making any decisions to make improvements. So, over the last 5 years, we've had 211 cases altogether. 192 of them have been resolved. That doesn't mean that we've done whatever somebody has asked us to do. That means we reviewed it. Some of them, we've actually done some things physically in the field. Others, we put a pin in it and say we might come back to this, or Maybe there are issues that really aren't as severe as what they may think. So we take everyone on face value and look at them and make sure that we resolve everyone and look at everyone independently. So about 90%, 91% of the cases are resolved. We have 19 that are active today. Some of them stay active for quite a while. That's about 9% altogether. This is the categorical breakdown of what we've seen over the last 5 years. I know that somewhat they overlap to some degree. What are the ones in red are the ones that we received the most feedback on regarding traffic safety is about 31%. Pedestrian crossings, second, is that's 42%. Traffic movement throughout the city is 33%, and you can, you can see the other ones. A close 4th is actually traffic calming. So, in our chapter in our Orem Street Master Plan, actually, there's an appendix in the master plan that is a guiding document that helps us to know how, how we can implement traffic calming devices in the city. It meets strict criteria of a defined area. You have to have a certain number or percent that are in favor of evaluating that.

And then if they are in favor of that, then we could implement Actually putting in whatever the traffic calming devices are that are being requested, and that seem appropriate for that area. We have about 16 pedestrian crossings that we've enhanced over the last 5 years. This refers to 2 basic terms. You have HAWK, which is this. It's a high-intensity activated crosswalk. You know what these are. I believe you have them in Provo, or there's something similar to these.

I know coming off Center Street off I-15, there is a— there's an activated crosswalk there. It's maybe not a HAWK as you see here, but I think it's basically virtually the same thing. We have something similar to this. It's not a HAWK on 12th West at about 1400 North in Orem, and it's similar to the one that you have on Center Street. So you have HAWKs, you have RRFBs, which are rectangular rapid flashing beacons.

So basically, these are ped-activated. Pedestrian comes up at a school crossing, for example, and this is— these are all solar powered with batteries, and the lights flash, and then it creates additional awareness. And we'll probably have several of these as well.

By the rec center, right?

Pardon?

By the rec center, we have those too.

Right. Okay. So this is just a list of many of these that we've done in the last 5 years.

I think that this group that meets together regularly, we've Done a pretty good and effective job at reviewing and prioritizing. We can't do everything. We can't address every request exactly as they would like us to. But we again use those guiding documents and principles that are found in those documents I shared with you earlier. I think there was some question or concern by maybe members of the Provo Council regarding what we're doing in Orem regarding traffic calming and reducing speeds and safety and so forth. You basically have 4 types of vertical deflections that you can see in ORM. Speed humps— speed bumps are basically found in parking lots. We don't have speed bumps on any of our streets. Then you have speed humps, which are different. This explains why and how they are different. The speed bumps are just about that wide and about that tall. So, You know, only about 4 inches tall. You find them in, in like park lots, about 6 inches, 5 to 6 inches or so. Those are targeted to reduce speeds down to about 5 to 10 miles an hour. Speed humps are similar, but they're wider. You have a wider base. They're about 12 feet, and then they also have a deflection about 3 to 4 feet.

Is that what's on Carterville?

It's more gradual, it's softer park.

Is that what's on Carterville?

Yes, yes, it is. Palisade has speed tables.

Okay.

Yeah, they are not speed humps technically. We also have a new speed table on 1600 South. It's a raised crosswalk. These are also called raised crosswalks. It's a flat surface on the top, and then it's a gradual slope going up and then over. It's a vertical deflection though. And, uh, and So it's about 3 to 4, might even be 5 or 6 inches on that, on these tables. They're gradual. They're more acceptable for public safety, for fire. I know that fire generally doesn't like any vertical deflections at all. Every second in a response time matters quite a bit in a life and death situation. And so we, we— Really careful about putting anything out there that has a vertical deflection. There's one area that we've been looking at in the last, last year. It's on 5th East and Orm. It's called the speed cushion. Essentially what it is, it's, it's like a speed hump, but there's gaps in between. So, a fire truck or an ambulance could go in between them and ride on those gaps. And so they don't— they're not going to deflect. Now, cars can do that as well. It would not be legal then, then they'd be crossing the center line and so forth and going against traffic. But it is done and designed specifically for those in fire that have a very significant concern with deflections and causing a problem. Can you imagine being in an ambulance with a cardiac arrest going over speed humps? I mean, that would be a challenge. So that's something that we're very concerned about. We're not trying to put these out. So historically on Palisade Drive, for example, Those went in in about 2001 or 2002, and they were prior to us having any specific policy regarding those, and they've— they're kind of legacy, or they've been adopted or grandfathered in. But we did transition from speed humps to speed tables to help out with emergency responses. Carterville Road does have speed humps. We don't allow them typically in the city. That's considered a— it's not even a local street. We've designated that as a rural street. And so that's why they are there. We are not looking at deploying them throughout the city. But we have them in a couple areas.

Table, is that what we have on University Avenue?

I'm not sure what location. Or a library?

I think it might be a speed hump, but I don't know, because 15 to 20 miles per hour.

Speed limit? I think speed hump on Center Street.

I thought that's what you said.

But yeah, those ones that we have, like the UVX, you know, roof damping.

That's probably a speed table. Do we have any?

I know we have any. Yeah, we have on Center Street. What is that? I drive it.

No, on University.

Where?

By the UVX stuff.

I've never— I don't recall that.

There isn't one on the Alcon Avenue itself, University Avenue, I believe.

Not one at all. Okay.

Do you have any thoughts or questions regarding vertical deflections? There are other types of traffic calming. Now, chicanes that will shift the traffic left or right. So there's a horizontal deflection. They also have the vertical deflections. They're not as— these are more effective, I would say, than the chicanes or horizontal deflections. These are also probably not as acceptable to professionals in public safety. And then also a lot of citizens don't like it. There are some that do. So we have some neighborhoods that really like the cushions that we're putting in. So we're looking at things.

We've, uh, We've purchased some speed cushions that are made out of rubber and just kind of testing them out, and then we're going to be putting them in concrete just shortly in the next month or so. So that project— this is an example of a joint— pardon?

Oh, before you move on, I just wanted to ask about snow removal with these different options. What have you found? With that and your equipment?

Yeah, so if it's, if it's a temporary rubberized speed calming device, that could get just scraped right off the road. So, but they are temporary and they're not meant to go throughout the winter. Maybe that's kind of a period in the summer if we're going to be effective and accepted by the neighborhood. Again, the neighborhood has to vote on these. And if they don't like them, they're not going to go in.

You know, yeah.

And so this is an appendix in our transportation master plan. You have to have, I think, over 50%, or it's more than that, I think.

So, like, on Palisade, where I see vertical deflections and chicanes, that neighborhood is like, please put these in here.

That neighborhood did originally back. We did not have chicanes on it then. We did put them in. They're not really chicanes, they were bull belts. But then we removed those at that location just recently. Now we just have the vertical deflection.

Why'd you remove them?

There was some opposition.

The same amount of opposition that neutralized the support board in the first place? It split and went a different direction.

Neighborhood supported the speed tables, but not the pullouts.

Wow. The bikes on the shoulder, the joggers, the women joggers.

They thought they had to go left into the traffic.

Around them into traffic.

Interesting.

Yeah, we had 2 locations where we took those out on 5th East as well. On 5th East, so we've gone back and we've looked at these speed cushions as an option. And they seem to be very well received and effective.

And also, and well, maybe this isn't vertical, but it pretends to be, is that roundabout, that one you— where was that?

By the rec center? Well, in place of a 4-way stop, you did a painted roundabout.

We painted the roundabout.

Yeah. Yeah. So we will put out delineators, those vertical delineators that are about 3 feet or 4 feet tall off the ground. We put them and made them kind of like a temporary roundabout or a circle. It's not really a roundabout, just to see what the reaction would be. Again, we engaged the public on that. And then there was enough positive feedback and opinion that we should at least evaluate it. It didn't stick because they didn't like it. They said, we'll just go back to what we have.

So the snow removal, you know that you don't use rubber deflectors, deflections with this, but just the regular snow with the asphalt, do we have issues with—

Oh, well, the concrete ones on Palisade and then the new one on 16th, I would say those don't have any problems. Um, they take the beating a lot better than asphalt. With the blade, it can take out a chunk of asphalt and, and burst those things. So I would recommend doing concrete if you need to.

That would be more expensive.

A little more expensive, longer lasting. So lifetime cost, it might be, might be cheaper. You won't have to replace those asphalt ones. Yeah, twice as much.

I know the vertical— were you talking about like matchstick bollards, or what were you describing for the first?

So they're like candlesticks. Maybe you've heard of them. They're about that big in diameter, a couple inches, and then they're about that tall.

These reflectors are white. Okay.

Yeah. Yellow. Series of those around. And then you're talking about now.

Thank you.

You see that a lot more now throughout Utah County, quite frankly. It's a cheap way of improving safety, traffic calming, and so forth. But it's also temporary generally. Just wanted to end on this, and this is a joint project that we've done with Provo City, Vern Bunsler and Gordon Haight and others who I— by the way, you have 2 of the best professionals in the state in public works director and traffic management in They're outstanding. Working with them. This is the— this is a connection up. This was the Welch property, or Welch, or Welch property back in the day, and then it was purchased and then developed into— I don't know how many lots, 2 or 3. This is off our 2000 South, and it's that connector on the south part of Orem, north part of Provo. Um, we've put in— these are bollards that you can't drive a car down here. We've had people complain that People are going to drive up here. We put these in. We've connected this into your trail system over here. Now you have some good access north and south, and there's a culvert here going over the West Union Canal so people can travel on bike, on skateboard, whatever it might be. And so I think it's, it's been a good joint effort. Our city crews put this in. Bill Peterson and his crews and the concrete group made these improvements here. Along this area. So, do you have any questions or feedback, thoughts, ideas?

I'm just so intrigued by your idea that the neighborhoods are asking for this. So when a neighborhood asks for a traffic calming measure, do you also have to do the engineering studies to say this is warranted under the You know, manual uniform traffic control devices or things like that.

Yeah. So there's certain streets that we don't allow it at all. So collectors, arterials, minor arterials, principal arterials. On rurals and locals, we allow them. So if they meet that criteria and they're not in that neighborhood and you have sufficient number of support to even evaluate it and look at it, then we'll go forward and perform a study. And we'll look at volumes and then speeds. If it's posted at 25 and the speed limits— or if it's posted at 25, the 25th percentile is like 30 or 31, we might look at it then. But if it's closer to 25, we might say you really don't have a problem here. I will say this, that there are outliers on every single street in Orem, in Provo, and every street in the United States where somebody hears or sees a car coming down at 80 miles an hour. It happens. We can't prevent it. Public safety can't do anything about it. It happens probably every day at some location. It really happens overnight. Traffic calming is not going to help in those instances. But, you know, 85% of the traffic travels at a speed that is reasonable and prudent. So we do speed stuff. Oh, I was going to We got to come back to this one. Oh, go ahead. I don't know. We're proposing to raise the speed limit potentially on 2000 South. We've done a study from Main Street West to Geneva Road. So, 30 miles an hour data shows or suggests that it should be 30 or 35. And it will go before the council for review. We want to make you aware of that. There's also a concern on Linden. Wanted to make them aware of that as well.

What street is that? Can you give me a reference?

2000 North in Provo.

It's only—

sure, it's your Airport Road.

Okay, it's, it's not an Airport Road, it's that one that—

it's just— it's 320th North, 320th South. It's just where— it's where the Lakeview Parkway ends.

It's the following boundary. Is that gone before our council? Just wanted to make you aware that we have been having discussions recently on that.

For your roads that are designated collector roads and you can't do more physical, what have you seen work for traffic calming if you just have speed concerns?

Raised crosswalks do work with our RFBs. They're effective, I believe, will reduce speeds. But people, as soon as they're through that, they'll speed up again. So it's very challenging. If it's a straight shot and it's posted at 100 miles an hour, you're going to get probably people 35 to 40 regularly, 85th percentile. If you create a chicane or a shift, that does help. Or something in the middle, a median.

I mean, that's—

you allow those on your collector, designated collectors? Thank you.

So, question I have is, like, you're talking about 20th South, 20th North. How does it work about raising the speed limit on a road that's shared by 2 cities?

Councils together in a meeting just like this, and then you talk about it. I like to do it. I don't actually— I don't know. It seems like a pretty good place to have that discussion. We would, we would look, uh, we would look, uh, to our councils and the council in Linden and have the discussion, perhaps at an administrative level, at a staff level. The same thing with Provo. And if the Provo staff confers, then they can go to their respective councils, and if both cities agree, then we'll make the change.

I think that is administrative in ours.

Pardon?

That's administrative in Provo.

It is administrative limits.

We don't vote on speed limits.

Okay, how about stop signs? What do you do there?

We don't vote on those either. Administrative.

Excellent.

We defer to Vern.

Yeah, Vern is the end-all be-all. Yeah. Um, cool. So as far as how your neighborhoods work, how do you get that vote of 50% of the neighborhood?

Do you just call the one—

the one in 4th East? Let's see, 4th East. 5th East is the— a neighbor, a few of them. Our neighborhood commission member went around, knocked doors, signed this, got enough signatures. They put in the temporary billows traffic.

And it has to be over 50% of the neighbors. I can't remember what the percentage is.

It might be—

it might be more, actually. It's actually 50% just to do a temporary measure. That's where you put it in and just let it sit for a few months. And then we go back— that neighbor has to go back and get 75% to make it permanent. If we put the temporary—

75%.

So it is a chore for whoever the— whoever wants it to do it.

Yeah.

Yes, that is very—

that process is in the transportation master plan. Yeah, I think it's Appendix A in our master plan. We can share it with you. I can share it with—

I don't know if there's appetite for it or not, but it's just interesting to see the differences in the program.

How does Provo do it? Don't allow speed bumps in the traffic calming.

He does a lot of bulb-outs, but that's Vern. And then he'll have to bring that forward in a capital improvements plan, and then that's where it's passed by the council. But he's the end-all be-all for the most part.

Yeah, but everything that he's doing Is warranted with those standards in the MUTCD, right? And so he's looking at engineering standards and everything. And the neighborhoods are able to bring up areas to ask him to do traffic studies to see if we need to change crosswalks or things in this area. And he looks into it and then kind of reports back to everybody. It says, okay, this is not needed right here for these reasons, or, oh, this is way worse than we all knew, and we are getting on this right away. So it's, it's just a different process. There is some opportunity for neighborhood input, but not the same as you have.

Back data and information to the council to review, as some decisions that are made can be very political. So we want to make them aware of those. Speed limits are highly political. Regulatory signs are also very political. Traffic calming is somewhat political.

Do you have any, instead of a vertical deflection, any dips that also act as a traffic calming thing? Because we've got a few that are just built into our roads. Stormwater stuff. They're not preferred, but oh, it works. We have one and you can see the scrapes of the cars. Quite a few of those. Probably not preferred.

I won't say that we designed them as traffic calming devices, but they function as them. Yes, and they're more for drainage.

Ours are stormwater as well.

Yeah, but I know some of you have thought of using them as traffic calming on certain areas. We have a hillside, you might have a drainage issue, so you might be able to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. These are challenging.

All right, if there aren't any other questions—

They made the law, we wouldn't have to worry about any of this.

So, I know, Ryan, I scared you last time. Now you're for real. All right, our final item is a discussion about economic development tools, and it will be presented by Ryan Clark, our assistant city manager.

It's a pleasure to be with you today. Um, questions we received from, uh, that Jennifer emailed over include, are there any city or tax incentives for the new Home Depot going in by the mall? How are we continuing continuing to encourage that redevelopment? What benefits are we seeing, and are we getting any citizen pushback as it develops? So I thought maybe the easiest way to answer all of those questions is just to kind of give a background of University Place and an update as to where we are. I've been lucky enough to work on this project since almost the beginning. And so, being the old guy in the room, I got asked to cover it, I think, because I have the most gray hair since Gary doesn't have any.

I'm sitting here minding my own business.

So, going back to around 2013, the original vision for the mall project was to add this amount of retail, office, residential, hotel over about 10 years onto 125 acres. On the left is what the mall looked like at the time. On the right is what the original plan looked like with the different areas designated. Orange is residential. residential, uh, blue is office. So there's several office buildings scattered about the site. And parking structures identified in white. And at that time, this was created as a CDA, which is a community development area, which is another name for redevelopment area, which under state law at the time was the code that allowed us to do this project. So that's what CDA stands for. And to create a CDA, you have an area plan and you have a budget. Those images were from the area plan. The budget for the project is where you determine how much tax increment likely used to incentivize development. So, at the time, we negotiated with 5 taxing entities, and we negotiated a 75% share of all new property tax growth to go back into the project. Later on, the school district, um, Negotiated on their own down to 65. That's why they're different than everyone else. And so we were projected to capture, if this plan was built as envisioned, $57 million of future tax increment over 20 years. And that $57 million was then budgeted to go towards 5% to administration of the area, 5% to— they call it an RDA. Redevelopment incentive fund. Um, really, the intention for that was to build more infrastructure around the project. Today, this money hasn't been used for any of those purposes, but we do have a traffic signal project coming up that may use some of that money. And then $51 million, or 90% of it, was anticipated to go back into the project. So, if you ever hear Orem residents say Orem gave the mall $50 million to redevelop, that's where this came from. You'll soon see that that's not necessarily the case. That $50 million needed to go towards these purposes. And at that time, it was estimated the mall would invest $89 million into these types of facilities, including parking structures being about $70 million of that amount. The way the city structured that incentive was that the developer needed to meet benchmarks to qualify for part of that tax increment. So Benchmark 1 qualified them for $20 million to be reimbursed to them, but they had to complete each of these items to qualify. Benchmark 2 was to build another 100,000 square feet on top of this of office, and then you can see each of them are tied to office development. So they would have never qualified for any of that $50 million unless they built all of this office. And to date, they have only qualified for the first 2 benchmarks, so they're only eligible for $24 million, which doesn't even exist right now. It's been collected by the school—

the school district has already given them their full portion.

Yeah, so all of that money every year when Anyone within that CDA pays our property taxes. The county collects it, and then they send it to the city, and then we reimburse the developer. And then we keep the 5% admin, and we keep the 5% for the other things, and we have those currently in our budget. So something happened, as we all know, COVID-19. Um, the state passed a law that you could extend these redevelopment areas an additional 2 years, and so the council did that in 2021. So we amended our original agreement, and then we came back in March of '24 and December of '25 to allow for Home Depot to go in and change the concept plan showing where the box— big box would fit and where it would face. Some background on Home Depot. How did we end up with Home Depot? Home Depot reached out to Orem. They were looking for a location halfway between Provo and Lindon, and they're literally were no options other than the mall. The original plan was never to put a big box home improvement store at the mall. In fact, it was to put residential in this area. And then we actually worked for 7 years to put the Hale Center Theater there, and we were in the middle of a study to show that they were at the financial capacity to continue operating. And that's when a big donor came in from a city to the north and Gave them a bunch of incentives, and our city manager and assistant at the time found out at Denny's after a council meeting. They were announcing the next morning going to Pleasant Grove. So if you've ever had a girlfriend or boyfriend cheat on you, that's how it felt like.

Well, wait a minute, I was on the hail board.

I still love our mayor. I'm over it now. I've moved on after 7 years of—

obviously it's not you, it's me.

So, at that point with COVID and as we all know, office has been dead in the water for quite some time, is starting to come back. We worked with Woodbury to restructure their original benchmarks, and we moved up $100,000 of retail from down here to replace the office. And we moved each benchmark down. So, Woodbury is still committed. Get to 700,000 square feet of office to qualify for up to $50 million. But right now, when Home Depot is done, they will qualify for $28.5 million.

So will this still be in effect with the new school district that's going to come on board?

Correct. Any redevelopment agreements that are in place are all bound until they expire, regardless of a new school district. So, um, where that brings us, this is from the original budget. And so this continues on to here. This is the public infrastructure. If you add all of these up from 2018, which is when the CDA triggered, that's when they officially start collecting tax increment, all the way to our current year, the original budget projected $20 million would be available. The reality is, Only a little, almost $11 million has been collected. So, because of COVID it threw the entire plan off. Who would have anticipated office wouldn't have been in demand? Anything, it's just gone to show me that anything can happen when you have a plan to follow up. So, so right now, Woodbury has put in $32 million of approved infrastructure that's been verified by staff, certified. We've issued letters of approval. But they're currently only approved for $24 million based on the benchmarks, but they've only received only $9.7 million. So to date, that's Orem's investment or tax increment investment into the University Place project.

And do you have to make up over time to the $24 million, or because that's all that you've generated, You, you're only accountable for that amount, correct?

We're only accountable for what it actually generates.

Council Member Millett, you explained why the 2014 date changed to 2018, that it extended.

Yes, so it did not trigger until 2018 to give Woodbury time to build basically the first benchmark infrastructure because there's not any tax increment to be collected. Unless a project actually has been built to generate new value. So, in the case of your mall in Provo, if you were to trigger— if you did an RDA with them right now and you were to trigger it from day 1, there wouldn't be any new growth to capture. You need their phase 1 or 2 to be built, and then you want to trigger it so that that property tax increases there. Um. The benefits that we've seen— the base value for the mall was $129 million in 2013. It's now $526 million, even though the project has not been built out as originally planned. So in, uh, what year is it? 20— I can't remember the date. 2029, I think I said earlier. All of that tax generated from $526 million at that point, 100% will flow through to the school district and to the city and to the county and to The 2. Thank you. Um, and this is straight from our report to the state showing our total assessed value down here at $526 million. So some of the other benefits we've seen is the mall has strategically been able to improve their tenant mix. And of their original goals, these stores up here were targeted, and they've been able to bring them in. The 914 residential units on site have led to a lot of support for the restaurants and the success we've seen. The sales per square foot of them all have gone up a lot. Yes.

How did you keep those from becoming Section 8? Because I think that's the biggest problem we have in Pueblo, is everything just turns to subsidized housing.

Um, I think because they're a joint venture between ICO, which is the Ivory Corporation, Ivory Development and the mall, they're going— and Woodbury Corporation, they have kept— these units are not market units. They don't have any desire to do anything other than market units.

Right. And there's not a lot of children in them, right?

Correct.

Mostly young single professionals.

Yeah. And that's part of why the school district supported the project is the demand on the schools was known not to be that great of a demand because there's not a lot of kids living in the units.

So it's the Ivory— it's not the charity portion of Ivory Homes.

It's—

no, that's— it's their for-profit.

Yeah, ICO is their multifamily identity or corporation for their multifamily. Nice. And then the mall's goal the entire time is to build sales per square foot equivalent to Fashion Place. Fashion Place is known as the gold standard in Utah. And They won't tell me what they are, but they tell me we're doing very well. That's all I can get out of them. They protect that information very well. But a lot of the benefits that we've seen from it is Junior Achievement of Utah came into the mall. The Woodburys did a— they did that nonprofit. They're nonprofit, and they did a deal with them to bring them in, and they bring busloads of kids in from all the schools to come and play. They do like a city training. Garrett participated in that a couple weeks ago, and Ran a business with the students selling things. It was fascinating to hear about. And then the mall has done so many of these public events in their open space. They do the Pioneer Day fireworks. We don't pay for that. They do all that on their own. That draws in— And then we partnered with them, having our agreement, 12 per year to take place in the park. So we make sure there's a public benefit from all of those things. Um, as far as citizen pushback, there's definitely concerns from the neighborhood to the northwest. A lot of people cut through the neighborhood to try to find a back door into Costco or into the mall. So we've had to do a lot of increased tiger team signage and painting on the road, no mall access and signs and calming. And they're, they're very concerned that the mall will continue to buy the neighborhood out and expand, but we feel that Home Depot will Has kind of drawn a line in the sand with Home Depot, Costco. No reason to go west. Those are built or have been built. And then Home Depot, actually, the Woodbury Corporation working with Home Depot, they even provided a sliver of property to a couple homeowners to give them greater setbacks from Home Depot with a taller wall. Oh, wow. And that's all been— the wall is actually installed now. If anyone wants to drive out, you can see it. And so they've been trying to work with the neighbors and lessen the impact, but regardless, there's always citizen pushback. It's just kind of the nature of—

There's the apprehension there, but they're, they're working very well. They're trying very hard, Home Depot, I feel.

Do you have any other questions? I'm happy to Yes, ma'am.

So I'm curious about the— excuse me— residential units. I've known a few families who've lived in the Devon or whatever the other ones are there, but are they all rental units? And what's the vacancy rate? And what's the turnover for those?

They are all rentals. We were hopeful there would be some owner-occupied and Woodbury has said that it's still not off the table in the future phases, but we'll see. Some of the high-end units— this is 4 or 5 years ago— were going for $2,500 a month for the corner units with 3 bedrooms. We're seeing young professionals. We're seeing— one was a retired Lyndon City Council member that sold their house and wanted to not be a homeowner. And so they moved in. That was 4 or 5 years ago. I don't know if they still live there. Um. At the time, their occupancy rate was in the 90s. I don't know what it is today. I haven't had a conversation with them for a while, but that was 2 or 3 years ago. My understanding is multifamily market softened a little bit, and there's a lot of vacancies. I don't know in Utah County, but Salt Lake County, I'm hearing a lot of vacancies in Salt Lake County. Did I answer everything?

It does for that. I have follow-ups though. So, do you know if any of those are being rented out as, like, Airbnb units?

I don't think— I would hope not. I don't see that being in there, the IACOA Woodbury playbook, but that's a really good question. I have heard there's another department complex forum that's doing that. We would heavily frown upon that because it's not legal, but I can't answer for them all.

And how's the hotel doing?

Last I heard, it was doing very well. They're very happy with it. I don't have any, like, data other than fuzzies. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Well, I mean, if transient room tax is any indication, they are now our number 2, right behind Airbnb.

Yeah. And then a lot of what has been built has been built on what were parking Yes. So how has that shift gone from the parking lots to developed uses where people actually do need to park now?

Yeah, so we have— the mall has as many parking stalls as they've ever needed, and more so. The hardest part with the parking structures is getting the general public to understand they're there and use them. There's a lot of complaints about there's nowhere to park on the north side of the mall. Like Cheesecake Factory is, and yet there's a garage underground that every time I go there, that's where I park because there's 200 stalls in there available. So we had asked them all to actually put up signage letting people know there's underground parking. That seems to have helped a little bit, but it's just consumer habits are very difficult to change, and people are so used to surface parking. And yet you can park under the one garage and walk right into Dillard's first or second floor, no problem. But every time I go there, I can get a space. No sweat, no problem. But it's been great because we're seeing those underutilized spaces activated, and they're used a lot more productively, especially the office building, which finally has people in it. The top floor has been leased, part of the 7th floor, and part of the 8th— or 6th and 7th have been leased.

How long was it vacant?

It sat for a couple years, 2, 3 years. Yeah.

And any problems with parking for the residential units?

Um, that's a point of discussion over by Costco because Costco doesn't control all the parking there, but everyone thinks they do. And so on the southerly end, a lot of tenants park there. And then the residents get upset, but it's technically the mall's parking and not Costco's parking. And so. Yeah, there is some overflow there. As far as the Exton, which is the one around the park, I haven't really— that's the garage, and it always has plenty of stalls in it. Yeah, definitely. There's always problems with overparking at complexes, especially if they charge for parking, which I don't know if the mall does, but that's where we really get into trouble.

Something I will say, I had a conversation with Woodbury's about, and their architect. About parking, and it was refreshing to hear them say, well, the standard is 1 space per bed. And I said, per bedroom? And they said, no, per bed. Bedrooms, they're very cognizant of the need for enough parking. When you have enough parking, you don't hear complaints, right? Other than the Costco issue. And that one, they're working out, but Something that I've appreciated about Woodbury developer, they recognize that pinch point for cities. If you don't have enough parking, this comes to snowballs.

And obviously you guys have that same problem that we do.

Campus stuff, empty parking lots.

Well, parking lots—

American Park, about as far as we are.

Can I ask you, the 9th East, um, you know what I'm talking about, by the townhomes, what's going on there? Are they— Just went through Planning Commission. We haven't had a chance to sink our teeth into it. Will they have enough parking? Because my daughter lived in those townhomes. I could not even go visit her. No, they got denied.

They want 50% And the Commission said no.

Great. Do you have any more questions for Ryan or anything? All right. You know what? I don't know. When was the last time there was a joint provost—

We had a Zoom call back in 2023.

I'm so excited. I'm so happy to have this. I hope that we can continue to have these meetings. I'm glad to be able to host you and look forward to continued discussions with you And working together. So I don't— we don't need a— where's our— we don't need a motion to adjourn. We can just leave, right? Okay, we're just gonna leave. I'm in trouble.

Thanks for being here.