SOUTH JORDAN — Check out a page turner at the library, maybe visit the spiffy new City Hall, then get a bite to eat, grab a bench and kick back among old-fashioned street lamps, oodles of trees and yellow daffodils while listening to music piped in over hidden speakers — all in one stop.
Sounds like the fictional Pleasantville.
"Only in color," says city manager Rick Horst.
This idyllic, very real setting is still in the construction phase, but the flowers, benches and at least one place to eat already are established in what amounts to South Jordan's new downtown.
It's actually the first downtown for this city of 30,000, a number that could easily reach 60,000 within 15 or 20 years as Kennecott Land's massive Daybreak development comes on line. For years, South Jordan has been thought of only as a bedroom community, but a new downtown hub built from scratch near 10500 South, just off Redwood Road, is changing that.
So far, there's a $4.1 million City Hall, 85,000 square feet of retail space in eight separate new buildings, land set aside for a library, skating rink and at least 50,000 more square feet of commercial space.
The place is called Towne Center Drive, a landscaped boulevard with historic appeal for people who crave the outdoor mall shopping experience.
Spencer Purves, owner of New York Subs, is betting a lot of his own money that the whole setup is going to be a smashing success.
Purves, 24, had narrowed his location choices to Draper and South Jordan. With City Hall and its 200 employees, along with several restaurants and other shops already moving in around him, "I just can't see how I could do poorly," he said.
He's been open just a few weeks and already repeat customers are showing up with the lunch crowds.
Towne Center Drive is also home to Bruce Hammond's first foray into the entrepreneurial forest with Gent's Formal Wear. The path he and Purves share is lined with red bricks, snazzy wall sconces and attractive, pedestrian-friendly streetscapes Hammond hopes will be filled with people from the city's ever-growing population.
"Once this fills up and gets going," he looks out his door, "I think it's going to be real positive."
Already, about three-quarters of the available commercial space is spoken for. That bodes well for the debt from sales tax revenue bonds taken out on the new City Hall. The idea is to pay down $500,000 a year on the debt and pocket another half-million for the city's general fund. All the city asks is that its residents shop locally.
A once "nervous" developer, Arbor Commercial — its partner is The Boyer Co. — used to call around for prospects to fill their spaces. Now, Horst says, people are calling them. "The developer would have never done this if it wasn't for the synergy City Hall brings."
Arbor Commercial president John Gust agrees. "The city just acts as an anchor, technically just like any other retail store."
South Jordan Towne Center started as an idea back around early 2000.
South Jordan was just one of a handful of bedroom communities in the southwest portion of the Salt Lake Valley. But commercial interests were knocking. Arbor and Boyer had built a huge strip center, anchored by Harmon's and Walgreen's, as part of a still-developing phase 1 just to the north of the new City Hall.
The city decided it wanted a master-planned center that would follow the most recent trend, which some call a "new urbanism."
"The old malls are dying out," Horst said. "People want to get back to the grass roots, the old main streets."
Gust had just returned from a trip to Barcelona, Spain, where he walked along Las Ramblas, a tree-lined boulevard with cafs, shops and lots of people. "I thought, gosh, this would be great in South Jordan."
The vision, then, for phase 2 was to have people walking from their homes, now being built along a new Beckstead Drive in a gated community behind City Hall. The buyers of these new homes, Horst said, will be bringing a lot of discretionary income.
Arbor Commercial and The Boyer Co. are investing at least $25 million, and the city is pitching in with a new home of its own. The whole project is about 50 acres.
"We're bringing rooftops," Horst says. "We're bringing uniqueness," and a quality, he says, that will hold up 20 years down the road. "We're frankly quite proud of this."
E-MAIL: sspeckman@desnews.com