March 2017 | Business View Magazine

118 119 H olladay, Utah, located just a few miles southeast of downtown Salt Lake City, was first settled in 1847, when a group of Mormon pioneers, known as the Mississippi Company, entered the Salt Lake Valley and camped by the banks of a free-flowing, spring-fed stream they christened Spring Creek. Soon, families built homes in the area and set out to tame this land that abounded in springs, ponds, grass- es, and wild flowers just west of the Wasatch Range and a few miles north of the Big Cot- tonwood Canyon. Although Holladay is considered the oldest Holladay, Utah Meeting its challenges continuously inhabited settlement in Utah, it only became an incorporated city in 1999. This paradox has created some “interesting challenges,” according to Mayor Rob Dahle, who says that the community constantly wrestles with the need to develop a mod- ern city infrastructure while still wishing to remain as undense, and un-citified, as practi- cable. “We’re kind of a unique community,” he says. “We’re a city in an urban area that wants to be as suburban as possible. So, how do we stay suburban in feel without getting too urban which is what we don’t want?” Paul Allred, Holladay’s Community Devel- opment Director, believes that part of the answer lies in recognizing the city’s attributes Holladay