St. George Spectrum & Daily News
Ambitious plans to build what amounts to entire new city along Utah’s southern border moved closer to reality Thursday, with the St. George city council giving its unanimous approval to more than 1,300 acres worth of zone changes.
Desert Color, designed to eventually build out to 3,350 acres, is planned as one of the largest master-planned developments in Utah history. It would transform the desert expanse along the Utah-Arizona border and eventually house tens of thousands of new southern Utah residents. Single-family homes, apartments, shopping, resort-style rentals, schools, parks and all the other trappings of a fully-functioning, self-sustaining community are planned to move in together.
“When the … area was reviewed this was the intention was to do the traditional neighborhood,” said John Willis, the city’s director of community development. “Ten to 12 years later we’re seeing it.”
Some 5,900 different units are included in the plans for the first phase of the project, a triangular 1,300-acre slice of desert wedged between Interstate 15 to the west, the Southern Parkway to the north and east, and the state line to the south.
