If you invested in local real estate two years ago, shrewd move.
If you didn't, too bad, because this is the place of late.The once-not-quite-fashionable back side of the Oquirrh Mountains has been discovered by urbanites to the east, and a boom in Tooele County land values means prosperity for Realtors and others.
But there's a down side, too. While state highway administrators focus on fixing more urban problems, U-36, the main road into the area, is sadly outdated and not quite fit to handle the traffic that drives it daily.
It's the perfect example of the struggle the state faces in keeping up with the growing traffic congestion associated with Utah's continuing population explosion.
The local manifestation of the boom underscores the need for a better road in and out of Tooele County, though Jim McMinimee, director for the Utah Department of Transportation's Region II, said cries for improvements on U-36 are lost in a din from similarly overrun areas.
McMinimee, whose beat cuts a wide swath from the state line near Evanston, Wyo., to Wendover, and embraces 63 percent of the state's population, said he hears such pleas daily from local gov-ern-ments.
"Davis County, Salt Lake County, Summit County, Tooele County . . . we've identified 73 projects in Region II that need pavement rehabilitation right now and 51 that need capacity improvements (widening)."
The 12 miles of U-36 between Tooele and I-80 fall under both headings, and are among $2.5 billion in what UDOT has labeled its "unfunded needs" for the next 10 years.
Largely two-lane, widening to three in places, U-36 is clearly inadequate for the growing number of commuters who drive it daily. UDOT says that in 1993, an average of 9,655 vehicles traveled U-36 every day - 1994's average jumped 12 percent to 10,845. By comparison, the average traffic increase on all state highways was 4.1 percent, according to John Wood, a UDOT research analyst.
The numbers for 1995 aren't compiled yet, but there's little doubt more cars than ever rumble in and out of Tooele, Erda and environs.
"In the morning if you lookdown there, you see nothing but red going around the mountain, and then headlights coming back at night," said Ray Johnson, Tooele County's chief engineer.
Why?
"We have probably eight or 10 people a week come into our office looking to relocate out of the Salt Lake Valley, and almost every one of them tells us the reason is all the congestion and crime where they live now," said Jay Kirk, the senior real-estate broker in Tooele.
Former farmland in Erda, 35 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City, is fast being claimed by tract-style subdivisions and small estates. In the past 18 months, Tooele has doubled in size geographically as the city has annexed proposed developments that include a 1,500-house project, replete with 27-hole golf course.
All this despite supposedly shattering news from Washington that the federal government is closing the Tooele Army Depot, wiping out 1,900 jobs and the mainstay of the local economy. By many accounts, civilians working in the military sector have since found jobs in the urban Salt Lake area.
"We're a bedroom community to the Salt Lake Valley," said Kirk.
And those who already had jobs in Salt Lake are moving to the country, even if it means living near a toxic-waste incinerator and commuting past a smelter and the often-stinky Great Salt Lake (Tooele County's population is 29,000 plus, up from 26,000 in 1990).
Never mind the drawbacks; it's the vistas that seem to matter. Nestled at the foot of the usually snowcapped Oquirrhs on the east and south, local communities enjoy views to the north of the lake and Stansbury Island. A broad prairie opens up across miles to the west.
The proof that buyers are bullish on the neighborhood is in property values. Five-acre "ranchettes" that went on the market a year and a half ago for $46,500 at Country Lane Estates are reselling today for $70,000. New townhouses in Stansbury Park, once maligned as a backwoods subdivision too far removed from town, are being marketed today for $120,000, up from $105,000 when they went on sale six months ago.
Demand has kept pace with supply. Five-acre parcels at a development called Lakeview sold out in eight months last year for $36,000 apiece.
But Kirk said the area remains affordable for the middle class. The new Tooele subdivision of Settlement Point has almost all of its stock unsold, priced from $107,900 to $124,900. And Rancho Tooele, a little farther southwest of the city center, has homes for as little as $83,000.