The Military Installation Development Authority was created in 2007 after the closure of a small military recreation lodge near Snowbasin. Eighteen years later, MIDA has “project areas” all over the state to support veterans and the military and to promote economic development.
That includes projects in Wasatch County, where MIDA is overseeing the development of East Village; at Sundance Mountain Resort, where a lodge for injured veterans is under construction; and an aerospace research park near Hill Air Force Base, among others.
MIDA is governed by a board of appointed, not elected, officials.
At a MIDA board meeting Tuesday, Dec. 16, leaders added a new project area to the list: the Tooele Army Depot.
MIDA Deputy Director Ariana Farber told board members the new project is intended to help the depot update its infrastructure.
“We have had some great communications with Tooele Army Depot about what some of their modernization needs are,” she said. “We’re currently working with them to try to get an enhanced use lease mechanism into place, so that we can start using our tools to help them with some of those modernization efforts.”
The Army depot covers over 43,000 acres of federal land – about the same size as Washington, D.C. – and all of it is included in the new project area.
MIDA board chair and Utah Senate Pres. Stuart Adams said the new project area will bring lots of possibilities.
“There’s so much demand right now for everything, you know, drones, everything else – there’s just opportunities for all types of businesses out there,” he said.
The project area plan states the Tooele depot “will rely on MIDA to contract with developers” and bring new infrastructure and improvements to the site.
The plan says MIDA will generate revenue to support the project and the depot’s role in national security.
“The extent of the construction is still to be determined through the master planning and design process,” it says.
Also at Tuesday’s board meeting, MIDA added another 142 acres of land, also in Tooele, to its existing Utah National Guard project area.
Farber said the new land, some of which is privately owned, will help MIDA develop the National Guard land faster.
“This will help us to increase our footprint, and it will help us to be able to just develop the property and make it more viable,” she said. “This whole piece here, that is adjacent to the Army depot, is actually not developable as-is without critical water infrastructure.”
She said MIDA will capture property taxes from the land to pay for that water infrastructure.
The board approved the changes, but Farber noted it’s contingent upon the Tooele City Council voting “to welcome MIDA into the project area” at its meeting Wednesday evening, Dec. 17.
The agenda packet for the Tooele council meeting says one eventual goal of the partnership is to construct a new armory and readiness center for the Utah National Guard.
MIDA’s Utah National Guard project area includes 27 sites across the state.
MIDA Executive Director Paul Morris said Tuesday the board will hear about the projects in Tooele in more depth at a meeting Jan. 13, 2026.
