A year after Heber City resolved to strike a deal, the city council on Tuesday approved terms to build a 132,000-square-foot Smith’s Marketplace north of town.
There’s already a Smith’s grocery store in Heber — city planners say that will close when the bigger store is ready to open. The new store will be in the New London development between downtown Heber and the Utah Valley University Wasatch Campus.
It’s a tri-party agreement between Smith’s, Heber City and Valley Hills, the developer of the New London mixed-use project. The Heber City Planning Commission recently approved the plans for the Smith’s Marketplace and nearly 300 homes to be built and rented at the development, so construction can now begin.
In the agreement, Heber City’s on the hook for some of the cost to build a road and roundabout — $2 million out of roughly $11 million total. The negotiations require Smith’s and the developer to begin construction later this year and finish by July 2024.
The Smith’s would be the first major component of an economic development project to generate tax dollars and build up the downtown area. By creating what’s called a community reinvestment area, the city could use a big chunk of new tax revenue from the Smith’s to reinvest in the downtown area.
The city would also use some of that revenue to pay back its $2 million contribution to the road.
Heber City Planning Director Tony Kohler told KPCW next month, the city council will vote on a policy related to large-scale retail facilities. That will decide what would happen if a store like the new Smith’s were to go out of business and how to redevelop the building it would leave.