Envision Central Heber is a master plan to breathe new life into downtown by giving locals more reasons to gather there. City Park is central to the plans, and at Heber’s annual retreat Saturday, leaders discussed their priorities on a long list of possible improvements.
Heber partnered with Roger Brooks, a consultant from Arizona who specializes in downtown planning, to create a vision for the park that he predicted would be “the most awesome square in the United States.”
If Heber follows Brooks’ plans, the park will include an ice-skating trail in the winter, a splash pad in the summer, pop-up small businesses and outdoor dining. In total, the improved park would cost an estimated $23 million.
At Saturday’s discussion, Keri Smith visited from Caldwell, Idaho. She worked in Caldwell’s government and oversaw a similar project in her town’s park. Based on that experience, she urged Heber leaders to construct the whole thing quickly.
“The amount of lost revenue alone in not completing that as fast as you can – that is unreal,” she said. “You need to do the things that make money right now as part of your phase one.”
That includes ensuring the skating trail is operational and vendors are able to start selling their wares at events like the Heber Market on Main.
“That is going to be your key to making money: don’t leave things empty,” Smith said. “When I’m an event-goer, I want to eat food from the food trucks; I want to check out local artisans.”
City manager Matt Brower said Heber is looking at a range of options for public funding, including impact fees, tax revenue and grants.
The biggest portion of funding would come from the community reinvestment area, or CRA – a tax increment funding plan in which local governments share tax revenue from new growth within the area for a certain period of time. In return, Heber plans to make the area more profitable, generating higher revenue it says will eventually benefit those investors.
Brower said city leaders are still working to get more local governments on board. So far, the Central Utah Water Conservancy District and Heber City have both agreed to contribute 75% of new tax revenue over the next 20 years, for a total of around $3 million.

Two other entities, Wasatch County and the Wasatch County School District, are less enthusiastic about the plan.
“There’s some hope that we get that interlocal agreement with the county – that’s $4 million,” Brower said.
He said he’s hoping for $7 million in CRA funding from those three entities. The school district would have contributed about $16 million had it joined the plan, but the school board declined to meet with Heber leaders about the proposal in December. Brower said there’s only an “outside chance” the district will change its mind.
He said the city plans to allocate around $2.5 million from the Trails, Arts and Parks tax for the park improvements over the next several years.
Heber will also apply for grants to help pay for the new park.
Besides the changes to City Park, Heber leaders also want to encourage more walkability downtown with “C Street,” a pedestrian path from City Hall to City Park just west of Main Street.
City planning director Tony Kohler said the C Street plan would retain all the buildings currently on those blocks.
“What we talked about was the idea of creating an organic initial path that is primarily just paint and signs to start,” he said. “We’re getting people used to using a pathway, getting people back there so that businesses can start remodeling their buildings and using this trail even more.”
The Envision Central Heber improvements are already underway. Renovations to City Park started with a new bandshell that’s being built on 200 South. Brower said construction is nearly complete, and the bandshell will host the Heber Market on Main concerts this summer.