Lehi may get 450-foot hotel

LEHI — Imagine driving south on I-15, gazing down at Utah Valley's flat farmlands and urban sprawl, then turning a corner and bam — there's Utah's tallest building.

The proposed 450-foot high, five-star hotel is intended to be the icon for the 85-acre development that will include lakes, a sports arena, retail shops and mixed-use residential areas.

The brainchild of famed architect Frank Gehry, the building will surpass in height the state's other two 400-foot plus structures — the LDS Church Office Building (435 feet) and the Wells Fargo Center (422 feet), both located in downtown Salt Lake City.

Creating an iconic structure — possibly made of glass — is the goal of 29-year-old entrepreneur Brandt Andersen, who has commissioned the project with the hopes that Gehry will design a community that will be a powerful landmark in Utah.

"What you see is the roof (of an arena), the iconic sort of hotel building, water coming through here — it's meant to really stand out as almost like a piece of art coming into (Lehi) city or into Salt Lake County," Andersen said Wednesday, as he unveiled a model of the project for the first time.

Other icons of the project will be a 22-acre wakeboarding lake that sits in the middle of the property and a 500,000 square foot in-ground sports arena. The project, which boasts 70 percent open space, will also have retail, restaurants and 2,500 high-end housing units.

Parking will mostly be placed underground to make room for more greenery. Attached to the arena will be an amphitheater, which could be used for meditation or yoga, Andersen said. He emphasizes that the whole theme of the project is to encourage active living.

With wooden blocks and plastic walls used to represent the various buildings and square footage that will be associated with the project, it's hard to tell what the final product will actually look like. But Andersen guarantees it will be unique.

"The site flows, and it kind of moves," Andersen said. "The buildings will not be square boxes, not even close. There's not going to be any arguments over stone vs. stucco. You won't hear any of that. That's not me and that's not Frank."

Andersen doesn't know exactly how much the project will cost or what the buildings will be made of, but he estimates the final price tag will be in the billions. A bigger concern now is getting the city to approve a general plan amendment that would create a whole new zoning category in which Andersen's project could fit.