A new development in the Heber Valley is set to break ground this fall, aimed at turning a 40-acre parcel off River Road into an all-ages spot for generations to come.
The Slope, named for a man-made, year-round tubing hill worked into the architecture of the building, is the first project by the newly created Angstrom Development Group. But it’s far from the individual five partners’ first project.
“You have five owners who all share in the same vision and passion, we’re all aligned on that, and we came together and brought all of our various backgrounds in development, hospitality and residential, etc,” said Neil Goldman of Angstrom Development Group. “That’s what you’re getting here.”
As he said, the project will be a blend of those backgrounds: an 86-key luxury hotel, 202 residences — 62 condos and 140 villas — multiple retail and dining options, plus recreational elements like pools and tubing.
The concept came together over two years and wasn’t actually Goldman’s original idea.
“We looked at Main Street and thought, ‘Gosh, this would be great if it had a boutique hotel.’ And so we started down that path and, admittedly, couldn’t find the right land to be able to make that happen,” he said.
Instead, their brokers pointed out the land on the corner of Highway 40 and River Road, now just minutes from Deer Valley Resort’s East Village base area. Goldman said they fell in love with the property and then designed the project around the land and the area’s goals.
“Most developers probably have a plan that they start off with. We actually took a different route. We read Heber’s Envision 2050, documents that were put together by city staff, city council and local residents, and read that and tried to understand, acclimate around what both Heber City and the valley needed,” Goldman said.
Originally, the land was entitled — given a definition of what could be built on the land — in 2015 by Wasatch County for, of all things, a water park, Goldman said.
“The plan, I don’t think, made sense for most people. It had underground parking, it didn’t have affordable housing, it was closed off to the public, so it really couldn’t be used by the community. So that’s why it never got built,” he said.
But because those entitlements were locked in by the county for 25 years, the Angstrom Development Group would have to build by those rules or wait until 2040 for a new entitlement.
“That was then when we went to Heber City, and we said, ‘Heber, we’d like to annex into the city.’ And by annexing into the city, they’re able to provide new entitlements for the land,” Goldman said.
Based on Heber City’s goals as outlined in the Envision 2050 document, adopted in 2020, residents wanted to see dense, mixed-use town centers surrounded by open space and trails, said Heber City Manager Matt Brower. So when the Angstrom Development Group approached the Heber City Council, leaders wanted to be careful with the approval, he said.
“The city took its time and didn’t accept the initial plans for the development,” Brower said. “(We) held several public meetings and two public hearings over the course of three years allowing residents to voice their opinions on both the original plan and the new plan.”
Councilors asked Goldman and his fellow developers to agree to alterations of the concept, like using clustering to provide more open space, some affordable housing options as well as financial participation in open space preservation.
One key conversation was regarding the North Fields, one area of the arid, high-desert Wasatch Back landscape that is classified as a wetland, allowing vegetation and livestock to thrive.
“The North Fields are the most sacred ground that we have along the Wasatch Back in the Heber Valley, so we needed to define whether this was or wasn’t in the North Fields,” Goldman said. “We were able to create a definition that technically we’re in the North Village overlay zone and not the North Fields.”
Brower said the preference would still have been to keep the area as open space, but with the Wasatch County entitlement allowing such a dense development, he said that option essentially “disappeared.”
“The land’s development value made this financially impossible,” he said.
So instead, they pushed for less density, which Goldman said they agreed to.
“If you think about it, most developers want to put as many buildings up as they can so that they can make money off them. We actually did the opposite. We reduced the density on the project by about 20%, and about a third of the overall parcel is being left open to open space,” he said. “That was important to us.”
The Angstrom group also agreed to add affordable housing, which they saw as a win-win, too.
“We have a lot of hospitality jobs that are going to be generated with our hotel and our retail,” Goldman said. “We were actually really in alignment there because we think it’s a great place for our employees to live and work.”
But that’s years away. Construction on The Slope is planned to start this fall, with Goldman and his fellow developers holding their breath as the vision slowly becomes reality, a vision for a mountain “village.”
“Whether you’re a kid, a parent, a grown up, a teenager, every age demographic can find something that they enjoy within this village,” Goldman said.
He describes the mock-ups for the design, built around their namesake slope tubing hill and a large courtyard meant to come alive daily with concerts, movies, farmers markets, fitness competitions or event arts-and-crafts clubs.
Goldman said, with his background in hospitality, he’s full of inspiration for not just the architecture — think, Kyoto, Japan, mixed with an Alpine feel — but also the eight-to-10 different dining outlets.
Brower said, overall, Angstrom Development Group has been very accommodating to the city’s requests, which also include higher in lieu fees, assessment of the North Village open space preservation fee, architectural requirements and land set aside for possible future bypass. Which was important, not just from a development standpoint but because of its location as a “gateway to not only the valley but also Heber City,” Brower said.
“The city hopes to continue working with Angstrom to implement a resort that will provide shopping, dining, hotel, and recreational opportunities for not only visitors, but residents of the valley,” Brower added.
For more information and to join the mailing list for updates, visit theslope.com.