Central Utah Agripark gains traction, picks final project location

MANTI—It’s been two years since the Central Utah Agripark was approved by the Utah Inland Port Authority, but things are just now beginning to move forward with the project.

During that time the project has been scaled down from the original, ambitious vision described in a draft plan created in 2023, since finding land that “checks all the boxes,” was difficult, the project director, Shaun Kjar, told Sanpete County Commissioners at a meeting on June 3.

Sanpete County Commissioner Scott Bartholomew agreed. “We purchased the water right up front, and we thought that would be the biggie right there. “…Then we couldn’t get the surrounding land. And so we got some land and then couldn’t get utilities to it.”

But then things “just kind of came together,” Bartholomew said, enabling the R6 Regional Council, sponsor of the project, to finally get going.

The goal is to build an agriculture processing and distribution complex that could handle many, if not all, of the agricultural goods produced in the Central Utah region.

“Really what this is, is an industrial park, but for agriculture,” Kjar told commissioners.

The Central Utah Agripark is a concept developed several years ago as a project of the Utah Inland Port Authority overseen by R6, which “was looking for something that could really move the needle for economic development in our area,” Kjar said.

The idea that came to the top was that “the best thing we could do was to create an industrial park for agriculture that would help with processing and distribution.”

The idea was to make agriculture production more feasible for producers by lowering the cost of shipping products to more remote processing and distribution centers.

“Right now…they a have to go so far to get done that it doesn’t make financial sense,” Kjar said in an interview with the Messenger Tuesday.

Originally, the plan envisioned a 35,000-acre complex spread across three different sites in Juab County, north of Nephi. The largest of those, with 33,000 acres, would be the Central Utah Agripark proper.

That has changed. The entire agriculture and transportation complex, Kjar said, will be on five different sites, with the agripark itself occupying 920 acres purchased by R6 just two months ago after it became available through a federal land swap with the Utah State Institutional and Trust Lands.

The search for suitable property was difficult, largely because of all the requirements a potential site had to meet.

Even though the plan was downsized, “We wanted to have a site large enough that it would be worth bringing in tens of millions of dollars in utilities, and that also wouldn’t have residential encroachment.”

It also needed to be close to rail lines, and the freeway. It would have to be close to an employment base. And it would need to have access to utilities.

R6 looked at a number of different locations. “We had a number of different offers, but … we had to make sure the numbers were right,” Kjar said. “We looked across all six counties for a location that would be best.”

When the current land—about 4.5 miles northwest of Nephi—became available, R6 made a bid for it.

If all goes as anticipated, R6 won’t actually build any of the facilities that will eventually occupy the agripark. That will be left to private businesses.

“The expectation is that we will lease as much of the property as we can,” Kjar said, which should create a source of funding to keep things going.
But R6 is getting the site build-ready by installing infrastructure: water, sewer, power, gas, fiber optics, etc.

The cost of that, Kjar said, could reach as high as $50 million, which R6 is hoping to get through a combination of federal, state, local and private funding.

A board of directors is made up of representatives from each of the six counties, the port authority, the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, the commissioner of the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, and a legislative member, right now Sen. Derrin Owens.

Even though not much has been done by way of publicity or marketing, Kjar said he is beginning to get inquiries from interested businesses.

“I’ve had to tell people “no” right now because we can’t get out in front of our skis or put the cart before the horse… and start promising things to people until we feel like we’re very confident we’ll have all these utilities in place,” he told commissioners.

To the Messenger, he said, “Right now, the best thing I can do is make sure that we have what we say we’re going to.”

Kjar said the first business could begin populating the park within 18 months to two years.

“I want it to work so bad, and I want it to be good for people,” he said. “We’re putting everything in to it.”