New projects are quickly changing the central St. George landscape this summer.
The Utah Department of Transportation is planning to take a major widening project for Bluff Street to bid this fall. The new overhaul, which would make significant changes to the St. George Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard intersections and add new lanes to the roadway between them, is expected to cost some $40 million, with much of those funds going to property purchases and other costs associated with clearing enough room for the planned changes. More than two dozen businesses were slated to be moved, with nine buildings slated to be demolished to make way for the roadway, a process that is already underway along sections of Bluff just north of St. George Boulevard.
St. George city planners have decided to move ahead with plans for a major overhaul at Vernon Worthen Park, the city center’s oldest and most-used park. The new designs have a new playground and parking lot moving to the north side of the park, across from the new school and the Dixie Sunbowl. New walking paths, landscaping, shade structures and new bathrooms are also planned, along with upgrades to the pickleball and sand volleyball courts. Built out across two phases, the overhaul was estimated to cost about $2 million.
A student housing project that could hold some 400 Dixie State University students is scheduled to move in at the area formerly known as the Sunburst Shopping Center, a collection of shops and restaurants along 700 East and Tabernacle Street. The 113-unit project would be five stories and cover most of the square block between 600 East and 700 East behind a Taco Bell and auto dealer on St. George Boulevard. Developers say it is pegged to open in fall of 2018.
Demolition crews plowed away the university’s 700 East tennis courts this month, making way for a new parking lot and for construction to start this fall on the new Human Performance Center. The 155,000-square-foot building is planned to move in across the street, where an existing parking lot sits next to the Old Gym building, with a groundbreaking for construction slated for mid-October. Eventually, university leaders plan to also build a mixed-use parking garage at the site of the tennis courts, but in the near-term a ground-level lot is planned. There were no immediate plans to replace the tennis courts. The building, which is projected to cost some $50 million, is scheduled to be finished in summer of 2019, complete with a fitness center, track, climbing wall, basketball courts and a 50-meter swimming pool, in addition to classrooms, offices and other facilities. The Spectrum
