"Lehi Get Renowed Architect" - Should Draper be Worried?

Articles in the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune are reporting that a famous architect, Frank Gehry, has been brought in to design a "high-end lifestyle shopping center and restaurants, as well as a five-star hotel and residential community" just south of the Salt Lake County border in Lehi.

While this is a great thing for Lehi and for Utah it also highlights the efforts being made by Draper's neighbors to establish commercial centers. Cities often compete with each other for lucrative projects that will maximize their sales tax revenue (see my previous post "Why is Sales Tax Such a Big Deal"). The result is that some cities are net exporters of tax dollars and some cities are net importers.

Sandy, for example, has done an excellent job importing sales tax revenue. They have Jordon Commons, Southtowne Mall, and the ExpoCenter. Sandy struck gold with the AutoMall since car dealerships are one of the biggest producers of sales tax. They also have Home Depot, BestBuy and Costco just on the border with Draper.

For years Draper residents have spent much of their shopping money in Sandy, Salt Lake City and other areas to help build parks, arts centers, rec centers etc. in those communities while Draper has been playing catch-up.

But now it's time for Draper to move to the fore and stake our claim to development that will form the foundation of our tax base that will fund our city for years to come. But that doesn't mean we need to or want to become the next Sandy. We can do even better. We can bring in projects that are unique. And we've taken some great first steps with Draper Peaks and IKEA.

But Draper isn't the only community doing this as these articles show. So I guess my point is that while we're going in the right direction we can't affort to sit on our laurels and expect great projects to come to us. Good city planning and economic development don't just happen on their own. Good developers and retailers that that can actually build those unique projects have to be recruited and then we need to work together to realize a common goal.

So should we be worried? Not at all. As long as we're smart in aggresively moving forward with our own plans I'm sure there's plenty of prosperity to go around.