Vineyard, Utah

8 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 6 V INEYARD , UTAH regional development board to create something very unique to Utah,” says Fullmer. “The Vineyard connector will bring people from the west side of the lake, down from Lehi, into Provo and Sundance. There is a large pedestrian-friendly promenade, which will act as the gateway to the lakefront. “It’s going to be a 100-foot- wide bridge structure that’s going to be really attractive, with a lot of great aesthetics,” Nair adds. The train station near this promenade is a unique project of its own. Rather than exiting the train onto a concrete parking lot, riders will enter into an area called the Train Plaza. Brim describes it as “an urban scape with restaurants and services that cater to transit users. We’re building a linear park that brings you all the way through downtown, with buildings and businesses and residential pushed up against that. There’s no other city in Utah, where you actually have a downtown that interfaces with the waterfront.” With COVID highlighting a demand for work at home infrastructure, Vineyard has continued to make fiber connectivity a priority, as well as designing live/work accommodations. The city is working with a developer to redesign a plan, changing from a townhome into live/work units. On the first floor would be a storefront with large windows. The first room would be a large office space and a lobby area with a bathroom, developed in a commercial grade of building code. This project would introduce 120 of these units, with construction planned for 2023. “That’s 120 new businesses that we could add to the city, but also provide for residential,” says Brim. “Your commute is basically walking down the stairs and going into your office. You can’t beat that.” As for what the future holds for Vineyard, Nair sees continued growth, with the lakefront and downtown projects completed within the next five years. He shares, “Once people fully embrace the vision, the rest of the city is going to build out in 10/15 years. Growth will be exponential with those key projects that we’re working on.” Brim offers his thoughts on the projects, acknowledging, “It’s going to create a very interconnected community, bringing the benefits of having a downtown for culture. Having the waterfront connected with that is so essential to the success of the city.” In summary, Mayor Fullmer, Chair of the Redevelopment Agency, offers, “Our brick-and- mortar concepts have been focused on human scale planning and satellite office spaces that create a space where people want to live, work, and play, which is important in a post- COVID remote working era. The vitality of the area is sewn together through tourism, diverse economic planning, strategic open space and agriculture, connection to higher education, and transportation that carries individuals from international and regional airports to schools, resorts, recreation, and jobs. This regional development is welcoming in a concept that will be the model of master planned developments throughout the state.”