What do you think about a request to vacate a street at 5404 N Edgewood Drive in the Riverbottoms Neighborhood to allow for new office development?

I support this as the road is not used very much as is. This development will be a nice addition to this part of Provo and will bring some much needed Class A office space.

In regards to vacating the street to allow for the new office development, I have no issue with that. That seems perfectly reasonable especially given that the access provided by the street will still be there in the parking lot. It seems silly to block the project because of little used section of frontage road.

One concern is if the nearby interchange to the North is redeveloped in the future, this project could be in the way; however, I that's not likely. The closest part of the project, is 0.3 miles away. The only way the interchange would reach the development is if the interchange doubled in size, secondly, in the unlikely case that it did, it would be meeting a parking lot which would not be hard to redevelop into whatever features are needed to make the interchange work.

Furthermore, I think the issues of traffic at this interchange are overblown. In my experience they only occur at certain times of day during certain times of year (e.g. between sessions of general conference), but other wise this interchange functions well.

Our need for housing and job opportunities is of great importance here in Provo and concerns of small increases in traffic or "ugly" housing should not stop a developer from providing such a service to those in need of their services.

Simply put, no, don't do it at this time. Several things jump out in looking at this, but I'll only mention two. There is a higher priority in this area that needs to be addressed first. The interchange from University Ave. to 800 N. Orem at the mouth of Provo Canyon needs to be updated, made smoother and allow it to accommodate the ever growing traffic this interchange supports between these two roads and Provo Canyon. To do that this land may be needed to work things out, i.e. to provide space in order move things around to accommodate any changes to improve this interchange. Until this is done, Provo City has no business trying to add any kind of development in this area for any reason. The problems with this interchange and the traffic it supports have to be solved first! Then we can better use the land.

Plus, while the developer's plan looks like it could be reasonable use of land, it is to put it kindly rather ugly. Maybe in the time it takes this city to fix the traffic problems in the area, the developer can come up with something that looks good to put in the unused space that is not needed to resolve the interchange and traffic problems. This way the city will be beautified and the development will be able to go in without increasing the traffic problems that already exist in this area.