EAGLE MOUNTAIN — Developers in this young city hope to lure large high-tech corporations here to make a Silicon Valley out of Cedar Valley.
The bait: a gravel road and a strip of pavement with plans to become a modern airport and business park, the promise of a relatively inexpensive labor force and an abundance of outdoor recreational opportunities.
The makings of the Jake Garn Airport lie ready and waiting to make good on at least one of these claims.
Full city, state and FAA approval for the airport have been granted, said developer Mike Wren, CEO of Eagle Mountain Properties.
The preliminary phase of the airport, a 2,500-foot paved taxi-way and 2,500-foot dirt runway, opened in 2000.
While planes can take off on the existing airstrip, it is mostly touch and go traffic currently. The Air National Guard from neighboring Camp William also uses the facilities most afternoons.
"The intent here is for this to become the Silicon Valley of Utah," Wren said. "And that's why we need an airport."
Now is not the time to start the next phase of the airport.
"We're getting a lot of attention and we have not done any marketing," he said. "We're scared to market. It's not time yet."
Before investing the $17 million it will take to complete the first phase of the airport, including a 6,150-foot runway long enough to handle 95 percent of general aviation, developers say the town must grow.
Eagle Mountain must almost double in size — from 600 rooftops to at least 1,000 — to provide a labor force to fill the corporations the airport will bring, Wren said.
Originally, plans called for the airport to be completed earlier, but the population wasn't large enough.
Current estimates indicate that the population would be large enough to begin construction next spring, with a grand opening set to take place in 2004.
Corporations could eventually own a share or multiple shares of an aircraft and hangar here, which would allow them to shuttle employees to meetings in other states more efficiently and at a lower cost to the company.
According to Ogden-Hinckley Municipal Airport manager Ed Rich, the trend for companies to do this is growing, especially since Sept. 11.
"Corporate America is really turning to private jets, big time," Rich said.
Rich said longer waits and more hassles to fly on commercial airlines are encouraging businesses to consider private jets as a quicker, more convenient method of traveling.
"An airport is very strategic for businesses now to have close by," he said.
Wren is counting on that.
He wants to create the same kind of success the city of Scottsdale, Ariz., has with its municipal airport.
Scottsdale's 2,600-acre commercial park surrounding the airport boasts 25 national and regional corporations and provides 30,000 jobs.
The airport has been essential to Eagle Mountain's plans since the city's incorporation in 1996.
"This whole idea out here was conceived with the airport as a central part of it. This whole idea was conceived with the idea that we could create a Silicon Valley right here," Wren said.
Eagle Mountain was master planned before construction began. Developers have land reserved for a hospital, a college campus and business park.
So far, the city has a small grocery store, a pizzeria and a snow cone shack.
Some residents are a bit wary of spending so much money on an airport in a town without a gas station.
Others feel the airport will only help the city grow.
The privately owned facility has 1,700 acres that will house homes and hundreds of hangars, Wren said. The airport has FAA approval to expand the runway to 10,000 feet, should the need arise.
Don't expect to catch a Delta flight at the Jake Garn Airport, though. The facilities will house private, non-commercial aircraft.
"The interesting thing about the way we have laid out the airport is that if you buy a residential lot in the airport district or a commercial lot or an industrial lot — whatever you have, you can drive on one road to the front of your house, and you can land your plane and taxi it to the back of your house or your business," Wren said.
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