After entertaining 106,000 patrons at various venues in Midway since 2009, theater company High Valley Arts is hoping to build a permanent home in Heber City, explained founder Sue Waldrip during the Heber City Council meeting on May 19.
High Valley Arts has no permanent facility in which to build sets or store props and costumes. It’s been a long 17 years of “hauling things” back and forth and “building on driveways,” Waldrip explained.
The solution? The High Valley Arts Performing Arts Center, including a 600-seat main theater, a 225-seat black box theater and two dance studios housing The Block Dance Studio and Primary Ballet Academy. The facilities would be available to rent by local performing arts organizations when they are not being used by High Valley Arts.
The organization is eyeing a 2.6-acre land parcel north of the corner of Fitzgerald Road and U.S. 40. High Valley Arts is hoping to annex the land into Heber City and build the performing arts center on the property.
In return, High Valley Arts would enter into a shared parking agreement with the city.
The performing arts center’s 406-stall parking lot would likely be shared by users of the public park and fire station planned just east of the property. The park and fire station are for Fitzgerald Farms, a planned residential development that will be built on 66 acres that were annexed into the city in 2022.
Unbeknownst to Waldrip and engineer Paul Berg before it was pointed out by Mayor Heidi Franco during the City Council meeting, the planned fire station cuts into a portion of the land for the performing arts center’s proposed parking lot, removing land for over 150 of the stalls.
Waldrip still hopes the proposed location can work out.
“Paul Berg now has the specifics that we were unaware of of the size of the fire station, and he is going to see if he can put sufficient parking on the remaining ground, which may cause us to lower our size of theater somewhat. It will be a balancing act. How small can we make that theater and still hope to survive financially?” she said. “Then, we’ll see whether we continue or don’t, or look for a different piece of property.”
Another consideration is the location of the Heber Valley bypass, which will divert traffic off of Heber City Main Street.
Alternative A keeps traffic on U.S. 40 between Potters Lane and 900 North. Alternative B instead cuts through the North Fields wetland area between those two roads. Alternative A, Waldrip said, would take 1 acre off the land parcel where High Valley Arts hopes to build the performing arts center.
The Utah Department of Transportation announced its preference for Alternative B in January. UDOT hopes to finalize its route by the end of the year. Waldrip said High Valley Arts will not purchase the Heber City land parcel until UDOT finalizes its route.
These two setbacks are not the first the performing arts center has encountered.
High Valley Arts has considered “four or five” sites in its hometown of Midway, including at the Homestead Resort, since 2018, Waldrip said.
The most “viable” location, according to Waldrip, was on the south side of the East 300 Main Street block. High Valley Arts began eyeing that location in 2022.
The Midway City Council had concerns about the proposed performing arts center that included its size, parking and potential traffic impacts. Before any site plan was approved, the land High Valley Arts hoped to build on was purchased by another buyer in December 2024.
“We were so distraught, we sent out an email that said, ‘That’s it. We’re folding up our tent,’” Waldrip recalled.
However, about three days later, Waldrip received an email that gave her the encouragement to continue her theater company.
Sculptor Stephen Neal, who is the director of the Monument of the Americas, a Latter-day Saint sculpture garden to be located on 10 acres near Utah Valley University Wasatch campus, invited High Valley Arts to build an outdoor amphitheater on the property to put on summertime plays to attract visitors.
The Monument of the Americas is not fully planned out yet, so the promise of the outdoor amphitheater has not swayed Waldrip’s determination to find a year-round, permanent home for her theater company.
Not everyone in the local arts shares Waldrip’s vision. Wasatch County Arts Council President Pat Sweeney questioned if the performing arts center was really necessary in a public comment during the Heber City Council meeting.
The Arts Council has been planning the Heber Valley Arts Center since December 2023. Planned for 4 acres east of the Utah Valley University Wasatch campus, the arts center could include an outdoor amphitheater, indoor theater and rehearsal, community and gallery spaces, though the Arts Council is still drawing up the layout and design.
Heber City has invested in the project by entering into a 50-year lease with the Arts Council at a rate of $1 per year. The Arts Council hopes to open the arts center by the 2034 Winter Olympics.
Sweeney questioned why Waldrip, whom she described as a friend, refused to bring High Valley Arts under the roof of the Heber Valley Arts Center.
“Our creative community is only so large. Our creative community needs directors, talents. If we’re all pulling and pulling and pulling these people, we won’t have people to direct and fill all these venues,” Sweeney said.
Waldrip stood her ground, saying she wants a venue that is truly owned by High Valley Arts.
“There is a great difference between two kinds of theater. One theater is the resident theater, like Hale (Centre) Theatre. The other type of theater is more of a town hall facility, where it’s a building that multiple groups can come in and use. Both of those concepts function amazingly well in Salt Lake City,” she said. “They are not competitive.”
City Councilors Aaron Cheatwood and Yvonne Barney chimed in their agreement with Waldrip. Cheatwood said his children, who have both participated in community theater, have experienced the challenge of being unable to build a set in a rented venue until it is their turn to use the space.
“There is actually a need for multiple (venues). I know it seems crazy, but we’re filling most of these physical spaces already,” he said.
The City Council did not vote on the matter because of High Valley Arts’ need to redraw its plan for the performing arts center. The City Council did request that Waldrip and Sweeney continue discussions about their respective arts centers.
City councilors’ reactions to the idea were overall positive, in no small part because the project would require no fiscal investment from the city.
“That’s really amazing and really wonderful to hear that you are so well funded,” Franco said. “So, of course, you can go forward (in redrawing the plan and bringing it back to the City Council), but it’s a matter of, ‘Is this the place?’ I’m not sure if this is going to be the place.”