FARMINGTON — Folks in Farmington City used to the usual in commercial development — malls and strip centers — will have an opportunity to peruse something new and unique in the genre as plans for the proposed Station Park center are unwrapped over the next few months.The first phase of the project will encompass 68 acres and enclose 1.6 million square feet mixed-use development.

Located south of Park Lane, north of the Davis County Justice Center, west of I-15 and east of the old Denver & Rio Grande railroad line, it is being billed as a “transit oriented development.” It’s not hard to see why.

“It is situated at the merger of I-15, U.S. 89, the Legacy Parkway and the site of a commuter rail station,” said Rich Haws, whose firm, The Haws Companies, is boosting the venture. “This makes it a truly regional transportation site, the only site that has all these transportation features at one location.”

According to Haws, this makes the area a no-brainer when it comes to future development. The question is, what kind of development and, further, how are people going to access it from the aforementioned major transportation links?

“We estimate there will be 5,000 new residences on the west side of Farmington and west Kaysville,” Haws noted. “When you look at that and how to move people out to the freeway system, you can see we need to open up a path.”

Right now, there are only two options available — the Park Lane interchange and Shepard Lane — neither of which, in Haws opinion, could handle the increased traffic.

“Right now there are no services available on the west side,” explained Haws. “We need to create something that maximizes all those transportation features and we’ve hired several well known land use planners to help.”

Firms like southern California-based Jerde Partners, Design Workshop in Denver and MHTM of Salt Lake City, together with Davis County-based Dave Dixon and Associates have, over the past several months, worked to design an overall transportation mixed-use development.

“Among the uses,” said Hawks, “would be an entertainment themed component, a 16- to 20-screen, stadium-seating theatre complex; four to six high end restaurants; a ‘Class A” office park; a residential element, with both for sale and for rent units; and a lifestyle center.”

The latter, he continued, would include some high-end retail mixed in with pedestrian oriented or “walkable” mixed use environment. This “transportation mixed use” concept is the next step in commercial development.

But it does present its own unique set of challenges —parking, access, a connection with the other side of the freeway — Lagoon and downtown Farm-ington — and, in this case, a link with the planned commuter rail station.

“We’re trying to get the UTA (Utah Transit Authority) piece settled first, a final design on the commuter rail station,” Haws said. “Once that’s done, we can start getting these components designed into this plan.”

The problem with the commuter rail station is that it is to be located east of the Union Pacific railroad tracks. That means a way to get passengers from the station to the developments on west of the UP line must be devised.

On different occasions, UTA has turned thumbs down on a pedestrian overpass and later a pedestrian underpass. Haws still believes that Farmington City and the UTA will negotiate a solution.

“I think, in the next few months,” he said, “they will work that out. Once that occurs, things will start to happen rather quickly.”

Among those things, Haws noted, will be announcements by major tenants of the new development. Though he could not identify any of those expressing definite interest in Station Park, he did say they are major players and people will be impressed.

“That’s the big story,” he stated. “I think within the next six months to a year we’ll be able to start giving out some names. They are very excited about this location. After all, 130,000 cars pass by it every day on I-15 alone.”

Haws is excited too, but not so much that he and his associates at Stonehenge Develop-ment Partners, the development arm of The Haws Companies, are of a mind to rush things along.

“The uniqueness of this site is that we have time to develop it the right way,” he said. “It’s all about the experience and I think we’re getting there.”

Bob Mickelson