The Point Draper
The former prison site at the point of the mountain, sorted into built and drawn
The Point, and the difference between built and drawn
The Utah State Prison left in 2022, demolition finished in 2023, the pipes and roads went in through 2025, and the first buildings broke ground in June 2026. Almost everything else you have read about this site, the housing totals, the job numbers, the air taxis, is a plan on paper rather than a place you can stand in. Here is which is which, with a date on each.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
The Point is the redevelopment of the former Utah State Prison site at the south end of the Salt Lake Valley in Draper, and as of 2026 the land is cleared, fully serviced, and just starting to grow buildings. The prison moved out in 2022, demolition finished in 2023, and the utilities and roads went in through 2025. Vertical construction on the first buildings began on 29 June 2026 across a 104 acre downtown district. Nothing has opened yet. Almost everything else attached to the name, the housing totals, the job numbers, the trail plans and the air taxis, is a published plan rather than a place you can walk into, and the honest way to read The Point today is to keep the built and the drawn firmly apart.
Start here
Six hundred acres, and a hard line down the middle of the story
For seventy years the thing everyone in Utah knew about Draper was the prison at the Point of the Mountain. That chapter is closed in the most literal sense. The Utah State Prison moved to its replacement west of Salt Lake City in July 2022, demolition followed, and the last guard tower came down in August 2023. What is left is a little over 600 acres of flat, serviced, state owned land sitting against an interstate, which is close to the rarest thing in this valley.
The state did not sell it to a master developer. It created the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority to hold and direct it, then contracted the first phase to a private venture, and that structure is worth understanding because it is why the published plans are so detailed and so long dated. A land authority answers to the legislature rather than to a quarterly return, and it publishes a vision that runs decades out.
Which brings us to the only rule that matters on this page. An enormous amount of what circulates about The Point is a plan rather than a place: unit counts, square footages, job numbers and trail routes that exist only in a document. Some of it is now real. The site's utilities and roads went in through 2025, and vertical construction on the first buildings started on 29 June 2026. The rest is a plan with a date on it, and the sections below keep the two apart.
The Point by the numbers
600+ acres
of former state prison ground
104 acres
in the first downtown district
29 June 2026
the day vertical construction began
165M dollars
of state money already in the ground
What is finished
The unglamorous half is the half that is actually done
Nothing on this list photographs well and all of it had to happen first. A 600 acre site that spent seventy years as a secure institution does not have the pipes, the drainage or the street grid that a district needs, and installing them is most of what the project has physically achieved so far.
| What | When | Status |
|---|---|---|
| The prison relocated to its replacement site | July 2022 | Complete |
| Demolition of the prison, including the last guard tower | August 2023 | Complete, with the historic chapel preserved and most materials recycled |
| Phase one agreement signed with a private development venture | Autumn 2023 | Complete |
| Groundbreaking on the site's utilities and roads | 17 December 2024 | Complete |
| Utilities, drainage and road base across the first district | Through 2025 | Complete |
| Vertical groundbreaking on the first buildings | 29 June 2026 | Complete, construction now live |
These dates come from the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority and the December 2024 and June 2026 groundbreakings. On a project that moves this fast, confirm the current status at thepointutah.org.
The recycling detail is worth a sentence because it tells you something about how the site was handled. The great majority of the prison's materials were recovered rather than sent to a landfill, and the chapel was preserved rather than leveled with everything else. On a project this size those are small decisions, and small decisions are usually a better guide to how a body operates than its published vision is.
The other thing the utilities phase bought is credibility. A great many announced districts in the mountain west never get past the rendering, and the difference is almost always whether anybody spent real money on pipes. Here, 165 million dollars of Utah Legislature money went into the ground before a single building was framed, which is the strongest single argument that this one is not just talk.
What is going up now
Four buildings and a street, on 104 of the 600 acres
On 29 June 2026 the development venture broke ground on the first vertical construction, with the governor present, on a district of 104 acres described as the downtown core of the wider site. That is the number to hold on to. The first phase is not the 600 acres and it is not the whole vision; it is a defined downtown of roughly a sixth of the ground, and it is the part with contractors on it.
The anchor is an arena. The Mountain America Event Center is a 5,000 seat venue, operated by Oak View Group under a multi year naming rights agreement with Mountain America Credit Union, and it has been described as the largest of its kind in the south end of the Salt Lake Valley. Around it, a 2,000 foot walkable street called The Promenade is meant to be the district's main gathering place, and a residential building called Chroma brings 363 homes with about 42,000 square feet of ground floor retail beneath them.
Coverage of the groundbreaking named two more buildings in the same first group: an education building called Convergence Hall, and an office building called Amber at around 60,000 square feet with a parking structure. The plan has several buildings rising together in the first district, and as of 2026 none of them has opened.
Separately, a University of Utah Health campus of about 46 acres has been announced next to the site as the anchor of a health innovation district. That is a neighboring commitment rather than a building inside the 104 acres, and it belongs in this section only because it is the strongest signal so far about what kind of jobs the wider site is chasing.
There are two venues called the Mountain America Event Center, and only one of them exists. The arena described above is under construction and has no opening date published. The other one, a 15,000 square foot events venue holding up to 2,000 guests, opened inside the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium's new building in February 2026 and is a short drive away in the same city. The same credit union holds naming rights on both, from two unrelated organizations. Until the arena opens, every ticket under that name is for the aquarium.
What is still a document
The numbers everybody quotes are the ones that are not built
This is the section most coverage of The Point skips, and it is the one that matters most to anybody making a decision on the strength of the project. Everything below is a published plan. None of it is built yet, several of the figures have already been revised once, and treating any of it as a commitment would be a mistake.
| The published figure | What it actually is | How much weight to give it |
|---|---|---|
| Roughly 2.3 billion dollars of private investment | A funding commitment across the first phase, not money already spent | Real, and a good measure of intent rather than of delivery |
| Housing counts in the thousands, including several hundred income restricted | Phase plan. The published totals have been stated differently at different points | Directional. The 363 unit building now under construction is the concrete part |
| Office and retail square footage across the wider site | A plan, dependent on tenants who are not yet named | Low weight until leases are announced |
| Job and economic output projections reaching decades out | Economic modeling commissioned to support the case for the project | Treat as advocacy arithmetic, not forecast |
| A paved trail spine linking the valley parkway to the eastern foothills | A published plan of roughly 1.4 miles | Plausible and useful if delivered; not there yet |
| Vertiports, air taxis and drone delivery | A feasibility study commissioned in 2024 | A study. Nothing more, and it should not be quoted as a plan |
| The whole site | A 15-year-plus build, with first buildings expected from 2028 | The single most honest number on this list |
These figures come from the project and the December 2024 and June 2026 groundbreakings. Planned numbers on a project this long get revised as tenants, funding and market conditions change, and several already have. Take the current position from thepointutah.org.
One hundred and sixty five million dollars of pipe is a fact. Twenty three thousand jobs is a model.
The structure
A state land authority is not a property developer
The land is held and directed by the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority, a body created by the legislature specifically for this site. That is unusual and it changes the character of the project in ways that are easy to miss. A private master developer works for a return within a financing window. A land authority answers to a legislature, holds ground it cannot simply flip, and can therefore commit to parks and public space and to a build horizon that no private balance sheet would tolerate.
Delivery of the first phase sits with a private venture, The Point Partners, bringing together Lincoln Property Company, Colmena Group and Wadsworth Development Group. The authority's executive director is Mike Ambre, named in October 2024. So there are two organizations to keep straight: one owns the ground and sets the terms, the other builds the buildings.
For a resident this split has one practical consequence. Questions about the plan, the timetable and the standards are authority questions, and the authority publishes. Questions about a specific building, a specific lease or a specific opening date are developer questions, and developers announce when it suits them. A great deal of confusion about this project comes from asking one of them a question that belongs to the other.
It also means the ordinary lever a resident has over development, which is a city council, only partly applies here. This is state land under a state authority sitting inside a city boundary, which is a genuinely different arrangement from the growth debates happening a few miles in any direction, and it is worth understanding before assuming a municipal process will decide something.
The honest read
A long position on the south end of a valley
This is the part a buyer actually needs, and it is short because the answer is not complicated once the built and the announced are separated properly.
The Point is real, funded at the infrastructure level, under construction at the building level, and years away from changing an ordinary weekday. Nothing about it is speculative in the sense that it might not happen. Everything about it is speculative in the sense that its shape, its tenants and its pace will all differ from the current drawings, because that is what happens over a 15-year-plus build.
The predictable effects arrive in an order. Construction traffic first, and that is already here. Then jobs, as the office and health ground fills. Then residents, once the first homes are finished, and then the retail and entertainment that follows residents. Density and road pressure track that sequence rather than arriving with the announcements. The western and southern parts of the city feel each stage first.
The transport question is the one that decides how well this lands, and it is unresolved. A light rail line between Draper and Lehi is the preferred alternative on paper and is not funded. Commuter rail capacity through the gap is a separate project on its own timetable. Both are covered on the commute page, which is where the corridor math belongs.
Can you go and see it
Not really, and that is the most useful thing on this page
There is nothing to visit. The Point is an active construction site with no visitor center, no public plaza and no attraction, and it will stay that way until buildings open. Anybody planning a trip here on the strength of the coverage will find fencing, equipment and a lot of graded dirt. That is not a criticism of the project; it is simply what the middle of a build looks like.
What you can do is read the ground. Driving the main roads around the site tells you more in ten minutes about scale and about how traffic will eventually move than any rendering does, and the difference between the graded, serviced portion and the untouched remainder is visible from a car. If you are weighing an address in the southern half of the city, that drive is worth doing once. Directions
When the first buildings open, this changes completely and quickly. An arena of 5,000 seats generates event traffic on a schedule, and a walkable street with retail beneath housing generates the ordinary kind. Both of those are things a nearby address feels. Until then, the useful destinations in this city are the ones on the ranked list, all of which are open today.
Do not enter the site, and do not trust a map application about it. This is a live construction area under a state land authority, with equipment movements and unfinished road base, and the streets shown across it by mapping apps are in various states of existing. Treat every route through the site as unavailable until the district opens, and use the surrounding main roads. The same applies to any listing or advertisement that describes an address as being at The Point today.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Keep reading
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Things to do
The top 8, ranked
A canyon the city owns, an aquarium wing that opened in 2026, and a free jump park.
Read the guideThe aquarium
Loveland Living Planet Aquarium
The building roughly doubled in February 2026, and a U2 stage stands outside it.
Read the guideThe canyon
Corner Canyon and its rules
One way climbs, one way descents, Class 1 e-bikes only, and no dogs above the line.
Read the guideThe cycle park
The Draper Cycle Park
Four jump lines, three pump tracks and a cyclocross flyover, and none of it costs anything.
Read the guideMoving here
The Point of the Mountain commute
Two railheads, one pinch in the mountains, and a light rail line approved but unfunded.
Read the guideThe companion
Draper, the whole picture
The canyon, the aquarium, the cycle park, The Point and the commute, in one place.
Read the pageQuick answers
The Point, answered
The Point is the redevelopment of a little over 600 acres of state owned land at the south end of the Salt Lake Valley, on the site of the former Utah State Prison. The land is held and directed by the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority, a body the legislature created for this one site, and the first phase is being built by a private venture. The plan is for a mixed use district of housing, offices, retail, entertainment and public space, delivered over decades.
The site is cleared and fully serviced, and the first buildings are under construction as of 2026. The prison relocated in July 2022 and demolition finished in 2023. Utilities, drainage and road base went in through 2025, after a groundbreaking in December 2024. Vertical construction on the first buildings began on 29 June 2026 across a 104 acre downtown district. Nothing has opened yet.
An arena, a walkable street and a residential building, with two more buildings named in the same group. The Mountain America Event Center is a 5,000 seat venue operated by Oak View Group. The Promenade is a 2,000 foot street meant to be the district's main gathering space. Chroma is a 363 unit residential building with about 42,000 square feet of ground floor retail. Coverage of the groundbreaking also named an education building called Convergence Hall and an office building called Amber.
Two figures are published and they are different things. The Utah Legislature committed 165 million dollars of infrastructure investment, which is money already spent putting services into the ground. The Point Partners committed 2.3 billion dollars of private funding to the first phase, which is a commitment across a multi year build rather than money already deployed. Neither figure covers the wider 600 acres beyond the first phase.
The first buildings are expected to open from 2028, and the whole site is a 15-year-plus build. The acreage beyond the first 104 acre district has no published horizon at all, and on a project of this length the schedule will change. Check the current position at thepointutah.org rather than in any article, including this one.
Not yet. It is an active construction site with no visitor center, no public plaza and no attraction, and mapping apps show streets across it that are in various states of existing. There is nothing to see beyond equipment, fencing and graded ground. Driving the surrounding main roads gives a useful sense of the scale if you are weighing an address nearby, but the site itself is not open and should not be entered.
It is reasonable to expect it to affect the southern and western parts of the city over time, and unreasonable to price that in today. The effects arrive in order: construction traffic first, then jobs as the office and health ground fills, then residents once the first homes are finished, then the retail and entertainment that follows residents. Anything you are told about the effect on a specific address today is an opinion about a build measured in years.
The land is held by the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority, created by the Utah Legislature for this site, with Mike Ambre as executive director since October 2024. The first phase is built by The Point Partners, a venture of Lincoln Property Company, Colmena Group and Wadsworth Development Group. That split matters in practice: the authority answers questions about the plan and the standards, and the developer answers questions about individual buildings.
Nothing funded. Light rail between Draper and Lehi is the preferred option in the environmental study, at a cost near a billion dollars, and the build is not funded. State money has gone to a first phase that is a mobility zone rather than the rail line itself. Commuter rail capacity through the gap is a separate project on its own timetable, and both are covered on the commute page here.
The Point is a bet on a decade, not an amenity today
Buying near a district that is years from finished is a legitimate decision, and a completely different one from buying near a finished amenity, and the two get run together constantly in this corridor. If that is the calculation you are weighing, tell me what you are looking at and I will put you with a Salt Lake County partner agent who follows this ground, and stay on the file for the research and the financing side.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
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