BYU housing dooms 'turtle'

PROVO — The sky is falling on Chicken Little in theaters everywhere, and now the end is near for the Ream's Turtle on Freedom Boulevard.

A Provo landmark because of its tortoise-shell shape, the former skating rink and Ream's grocery store may be demolished by the middle of the month after the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a new housing development exclusively for Brigham Young University students.

The Alpine Village will include more than 160 four-bedroom condominiums and a number of shops on the corner of Freedom Boulevard (200 West) and Paul Ream Avenue (about 1400 North), where the silver-domed "Turtle" has been since 1961.

BYU considers Alpine Village part of a pilot program to see how students react to apartment-style housing both on campus and off. Nationally and locally, college students appear increasingly interested in apartments over dorms.

The on-campus portion of the test begins next fall when BYU begins to move single students out of dorms at Deseret Towers and temporarily into apartments at Wyview Park, which previously had been reserved for married students. BYU announced last year that half of the current Wyview tenants must move by July. The remainder must leave by July 2007.

The university hasn't made any decisions about the future of Deseret Towers, but officials are considering renovating the six towers or tearing them down and building a new apartment-style complex for single students. That would allow married students to return to Wyview.

Off campus, BYU has an exclusive contract with Alpine Village to rent or sell solely to BYU students. The experiment, called "chartered housing," gives the university additional control of the living environment beyond what it already enjoys with other off-campus housing complexes because BYU will have the right to veto businesses that apply for commercial space.

"BYU will be allowed to screen our retail so there are no tattoo parlors or tanning parlors, for example," said Gary Otterstrom of Timpanogos West Development and Management.

Otterstrom said developers have obtained demolition permits for the Turtle and two other buildings.

Provo officials like the project because they hope it will create an urban village for 3,000 people living within a quarter-mile of the project. Plans call for more than 11,000 square feet of commercial space, including a small general grocery store like BYU's Creamery on Ninth — without the restaurant.