Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
CLEARFIELD — Roads and water and sewer lines have been installed around Clearfield Station, the sprawling development taking shape around the city's FrontRunner station.
"The next step is proceeding forward with vertical development — the apartments, the offices, the retail," said Ken Shields, with Hamilton Partners, the Salt Lake firm helping oversee Clearfield Station development.
Clearfield Station, one of three development initiatives around Utah Transit Authority FrontRunner stops in northern Utah, has been in the works for years. The infrastructure, in addition to a new park, is finally in place to allow for housing and commercial buildings to take shape, though, and Mayor Mark Shepherd, UTA trustee Beth Holbrook, Shields and others gathered Tuesday to mark the milestone.
"We are ready to go. I'm going to let people know we're here and ready to stick shovels in the ground," Shepherd said. "This is a great vision to happen, and it has taken, again, a long time to get us here."
The Clearfield Station plans, spread across 56 acres, are significant for Clearfield, with as many as 1,000 new housing units, 550,000 square feet of new office space and 67,500 square feet of new commercial space envisioned. But they are part of an even larger vision that also calls for redevelopment around the Roy and Ogden FrontRunner stations further north. All told, the three long-term plans call for redevelopment of 166 acres — 56 in Clearfield, nearly 30 in Ogden and around 80 in Roy — as part of the UTA vision of bolstering transit-oriented development, concentrated communities around transit hubs like FrontRunner stations.
"Our ability to do strategic density at these locations allows people to have housing adjacent to transit," Holbrook said. "That's how we're getting all of these people connected to jobs."
What's more, she said, developing housing around transit stations can put a check on the need for more autos, turning two-car families into one-car families. Officials from UTA, owner of some of the land at each site, are closely involved in the plans and planning processes.
The Roy plans are in the planning stages. The Ogden initiative, focused around Union Station in the city, has been the topic of intense debate as leaders and residents wrestle with how the development should unfold. The Clearfield Station initiative, meanwhile, is the furthest along, and Shields said the first phase of vertical development — construction of apartment buildings with 213 units — should start next spring.
The housing and commercial development, all told, will cost around $500 million, Shields estimates, and developers are in talks with potential partners for future phases of the project. Though moving forward, the timeline for completion of development, he said, "is really determined by the market."
The roads, water lines, sewer conduits and new park were funded with some $27 million in Clearfield, Davis County and state funds. Clearfield issued $18.5 million in bonds to cover its share and will cover bond payments with anticipated tax-increment finance funds.
