'This has been my life': Redwood Swap Meet to close Sunday as site redevelopment looms

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Redwood Swap Meet in West Valley City closes after business on Sunday to make way for redevelopment.
Vendors express mixed emotions, with some nostalgic and others more matter-of-fact.
A 300-unit housing development is coming to the space while plans are in the works to move swap meet operations to the Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre.

WEST VALLEY CITY — For 28 years, the Redwood Swap Meet in West Valley City has been a home away from home for Iris Liliana Frantz.

She sells purses and other items at the open air market along with her husband Sherrel Frantz, helping the couple cobble together a living. At the same time, she's developed a strong sense of camaraderie with other vendors and customers. "This has been my family," she said.

Now with the swap meet's last day set for Sunday as plans to turn the 26-acre site into a housing development forge ahead, she's left with a range of sentiments. "This has been my life. I'm nostalgic, sad. I have conflicting emotions," she said Saturday.

The future of the swap meet, which also doubles as the Redwood Drive-In, has been focus of intense public debate since at least last June as a developer has pursued a rezone of the land to develop homes, townhomes and condominiums. West Valley City officials last September approved the plans despite the strong opposition of vendors like Frantz. Now the day looms for the swap meet to shut its doors so redevelopment can proceed, seen by boosters as a step forward in efforts to bolster Utah's housing stock.

Some vendors — many of them Latin American immigrants, like the customer base — are misty-eyed like Frantz, originally from Chile. "There are many people, older people, they can't work. They come here and sell. Many of them are going to be left with nothing," said Dinazar Carbajal, originally from Mexico, who has sold clothing at Redwood for 12 years.

Iris Liliana Frantz and her husband Sherrel Frantz, vendors at Redwood Swap Meet in West Valley City, on Saturday, a day before its planned closure. (Photo: Tim Vandenack, KSL.com)

Others are more matter-of-fact. Some 500 vendors in all operate at the swap meet, which has operated year round, typically on Saturdays and Sundays. They rent the stalls they use.

"I'm not sad, but I'm not happy about it," said Freddy Cid, helping sell peanuts at a stand his father has operated for 20 years. The Redwood operation helps supplement the family income, he said, but they'll manage after the swap meet closes.

Lidia Agustin, a fruit and vegetable vendor at Redwood for the last five years, takes the change in stride. One door closing, she reasons, means another one opens. "You have to think that way," said Agustin, originally from Mexico.

Dinazar Carbajal, a vendor at Redwood Swap Meet in West Valley City, on Saturday, a day before its planned closure. (Photo: Tim Vandenack, KSL.com)

Whatever the outlook of individual vendors — nostalgic or nonchalant — change is coming. Sunday's closure of Redwood precedes planned demolition of the screens and other structures at the site beginning in mid-January to make way for the new 300-unit housing development called Woodstone. "We anticipate starting development on the first phase in April of 2025," the developer, Draper-based Egdehomes, said in a statement.

Meantime, Cristian Carbajal Gutierrez, a vendor and Dinazar Carbajal's son, said plans are coming together to move the swap meet at 3688 S. Redwood Road to the grounds of the Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre in West Valley City, previously known as the USANA Amphitheatre. He's been publicly advocating for the vendors, first to get the redevelopment plans halted and more recently to find another space where they can sell their goods.

Misabel Sanchez, a vendor at Redwood Swap Meet in West Valley City, on Saturday, a day before its planned closure. (Photo: Tim Vandenack, KSL.com)

"It would be able to fit all the vendors," Carbajal Gutierrez said. He's been working with amphitheater representatives to finalize the plans and said one of the remaining issues is scheduling when vendors can operate around event dates at the facility.

Vendors, generally speaking, are happy about the possibility, he said. At the very least, the prospect of a new location tempers the closure of Redwood. "We're very sad but, at the same time we have hope, we have hope for the West Valley," Carbajal Gutierrez said.

Aside from the financial implications of Redwood's closure, some of its aficionados are sad to see the loss of what has been a community gathering space, particularly for the Latino community.

Misabel Sanchez, originally from Mexico, first started going to the Redwood Swap Meet 40-plus years ago when she was a teen. When she had children, she'd bring them and now she's a vendor, selling health supplements. Back when Utah's population was much more homogenous "this is where you could find Latinos," she said.

Now as a vendor, the weekend marketplace still has a social aspect to it that she'll miss. "This is my party time. This is fun," she said.

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