A redevelopment project at Junction Commons would be a shoo-in, but a new neighborhood is going in right next door, and traffic is top-of-mind.
Summit County Councilmember Roger Armstrong said March 18 there’s a lesson to be learned in that.
“If the Legislature had not forced the Dakota Pacific project, which is essentially what happened, I would be actually, very, very excited about this,” he said. “I think it's a great vision, it's a great layout, it's a good plan.”
Dakota Pacific Real Estate’s development is adjacent to the upper loop of outlet stores in Junction Commons. In total, Dakota Pacific will build 885 units of housing, plus new businesses.
Outlet mall owner Singerman Real Estate proposes cutting back its own commercial square footage slightly by replacing the upper loop with housing and filling the lower parking lot with mixed-use buildings.
The design, sometimes called infill housing, is what appeals to councilmembers like Megan McKenna — as opposed to development in a vacant field.
“This entire area could really serve as a model, not only for the county, but for some of our cities,” she said.
Armstrong said it’s the kind of redevelopment he’d welcome in parking lots around Redstone across state Route 224 to the east, which he called a “design disaster.”
Junction Commons could be the first successful rezone to the neighborhood mixed-use, NMU-1, zone the county created in 2021. But rezones require a council vote, and that gives the council broad discretion to approve or deny it.
The last time councilmembers voted to approve a new project was in December 2025. That was the controversial Dakota Pacific development — a passing vote councilmembers said was cast under duress from state legislators. There was public uproar, a referendum effort to overturn the vote and a lawsuit.
And traffic was one of the anti-Dakota Pacific movement’s driving factors.
“This would be another project on top of that, and for the life of me, I can't figure out how we're going to deal with all the traffic and the cars,” Councilmember Canice Harte said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” March 19.
Junction Commons’ proposed housing is a mix of apartments and townhomes — 510 units total — and the vast majority would be replacing the upper loop of stores.
Usually the NMU-1 zone requires half the housing to be affordable. But local laws allow the council to decide to require up to 25% fewer affordable units if they’re the ones that get built first.
Councilmembers want to see details on the affordability of the project and its traffic study the next time it meets with the developer.
Singerman has touted how it will offer more options besides car transportation, including Summit Bike Share. The vision is to make the outlets themselves more walkable, and there would be trail connections to Dakota Pacific’s neighborhood to the south.
Summit County and Junction Commons are financial supporters of KPCW.
