The future of Utah is bright. Business leaders from a variety of sectors gathered towards the end of 2021 for the first-annual Utah Business Economic Outlook Summit. Stephen James, SVP of Planning and Community Design at Larry H. Miller Real Estate (LHMRE), participated in the summit as a panelist for the topic “Living & Working in Utah.” The panel tackled various topics, including transportation, equality, sustainability, and innovation pertaining to living and working in the Beehive State.
One of LHMRE’s larger projects is the master-planned community of Daybreak located in South Jordan, Utah. During the panel discussion, James shared that LHMRE is innovating the way Daybreak residents live and recreate by integrating trails and recreation directly into the fabric of the community framework. This allows people to walk out their front door and get their outdoor fix without the need to travel by car.
“Why not bring everything that the mountains provide into the community as a community framework?” James asked the panel. “One thing that we are doing with school children in our work, is conditioning kids to think about alternative modes of transportation. We just finished integrating miles of mountain bike trails, flow trails, jumps, pump tracks into the fabric of the community, not on the edge.”
“It is fascinating to see couples sit on their porch with a glass of wine and a plate of cheese, watching their kids right out their front door,” James shared. “[When recreation] becomes a part of the community—everyone’s trailhead is now their garage door. When we reengage the environment in beautiful compact spaces, it’s pleasurable. It reconnects us to our humanity. And we don’t have to travel to canyons. We can get our fix closer to home.”