SANTA CLARA — In a State of the City speech that was a combination of a game show and a real estate listing presentation, Santa Clara Mayor Rick Rosenberg battled through a hoarse voice to give what was mostly an update on projects around town.

Those projects included news that Intermountain Health has purchased land in Santa Clara and a new, expanded Dutchman’s Market on the brink of opening. 

Being mayor of Santa Clara since 2007, Rosenberg has done enough State of the City speeches that his presentation at Santa Clara Town Hall on Tuesday was a basic overview highlighting current projects and growth around the city with no new major initiatives. And after his speech, Rosenberg said that was his intended goal.

“This was to just kind of bring everybody current on what was going on, what we’re dealing with, and that’s about it,” Rosenberg told St. George News after his presentation. 

But there was still room for the game show, as Rosenberg quizzed those in the Town Hall’s banquet room about certain demographic facts about Santa Clara with prizes that included the recently released Dowdle Santa Clara puzzle and a Santa Clara-branded Stanley mug. 

Among the quiz questions: “What is the median age of people in Santa Clara?” (33), “What percentage of the city’s population is college-educated?” (40), and “What is Santa Clara’s annual rainfall?” (8.63 inches).

Rosenberg’s voice had trouble holding up in the speech, which was around 40 minutes.

“I’ve been recovering from an infection and so if I just kind of tumble down back here, you guys on the back row, you know what to do, right?” Rosenberg said, motioning to the members of the Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department.

Rosenberg touched briefly on ongoing negotiations between Santa Clara and Ivins over their joint fire department’s budget, which Santa Clara oversees. 

“It’s been kind of tumultuous year this year a little bit with budgets, but I think we got it worked out,” Rosenberg said. 

The mayor touted the growth during his 17 years in office, stating that back in 2007, sales taxes amounted to less than 2% of the city’s revenues and now account for 17%.

He also defended developments that he said have contributed to those increased revenues for the city including the Harmons shopping center. 

“I know there was a lot of concern when we first talked about Harmons and we don’t know if we want the traffic. We don’t know if we want the commercial. It’s a residential community,” Rosenberg said. “Well, every time you don’t have to drive on this road to go into St. George, you can save your time, you can save your money and you also provide sales tax revenue. This lets us do new things. This thing generates over a million dollars of revenue that we never had before and that we don’t have to pay to give.”

And this same area is one of the last areas left in Santa Clara available for commercial, he added.

The proposed Silverado Santa Clara project at Red Mountain Drive and Pioneer Parkway was initially approved for mixed-use residential and commercial in 2022, but the developer has since come back with a refinement that abandons the 50,000-square foot indoor pickleball and sports complex.

Instead, city records show Intermountain Health sold that portion of land as a site for a future InstaCare. 

Intermountain, the parent of St. George Regional Hospital, has been in the middle of an aggressive local expansion of individual clinics away from the main hospital closer to other local communities. That includes the recently-opened emergency care facility in Hurricane, an under-construction clinic in Washington Fields and a soon-to-break-ground emergency care facility at Desert Color. 

Former longtime St. George Regional Hospital CEO Terri Kane embraced the mayor before the event. During the mayor’s address, Rosenberg mentioned Kane’s new project as the realtor for the 163-unit Snow Canyon Retirement Community nearing completion north of Pioneer Parkway near Entrada. 

Among accomplishments over the last year, Rosenberg praised a refinement to the city’s residential solar panel incentive policy made in January 2023 that he said has resulted in 26 new residences getting solar permits. 

“We’ve seen kind of a surge,” Rosenberg said. “It made it a little bit more economical for people to get into solar, rooftop solar and we’re seeing a pretty good increase.”

Rosenberg saved the majority of his address for what amounted to a showcase of the commercial and government projects around town nearly complete, completed or still in planning stages. 

He touted the under-construction Quail Crossing and Coyote Landing project at 400 East and North Town Road as the first “true attainable housing” in Santa Clara. Rosenberg said homes that are being built with a state-attainable housing tax credit could be purchased with a down payment as low as 30%. The cost of these homes was not specified. 

The project includes 120 townhomes that Rosenberg said are set up to be rentable. They can also be used as short-term rentals. Rent for homes at Coyote Landing is priced at around $2,200 per month for a three-bedroom home, according to online listings. 

“The key to this is those apartments are true attainable housing. That’s one of the big issues we’ve got in Washington County … being able to provide attainable housing for our workforce,” Rosenberg said. “We need those workers. Our businesses need them. It’s hard as we go out and recruit city employees when they come down here and interface with an average home price of $550,000 working on the government payroll.”

Rosenberg followed by mentioning the Pioneer Pointe project at 400 East and Pioneer Parkway, which was approved last year after an outcry from some members of the public against denser housing on the property and a split council. 

The mayor said the contentious process to get the rezoning for the project approved was a harbinger of how much tougher it will be to approve denser housing projects locally in the near future. 

“Any real plan development in Santa Clara is going to kind of have to follow this model to get approved,” Rosenberg said of the 133-unit multifamily housing project that has yet to start construction.

The model he referenced is a larger, single-family home.

Among other projects mentioned by Rosenberg:

• Dutchman’s Market, known for inventing the signature Southern Utah pink frosting cookie, is nearing completion of a new bakery building and expansion. Rosenberg mentioned that pending City Council approval, a large mural is planned to cover all of the west side of the building. 
• Traffic signals will be built at Red Mountain Drive and Pioneer Parkway in the coming months. Rosenberg notes this will be important for the upcoming professional golf events at Black Desert Resort, including the first PGA Tour event in October. Rosenberg said traffic studies are underway and constant meetings between the Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department and Black Desert officials have been held. 
• Rosenberg said a proposal to turn Tobler Park into a historical park is still ongoing and remains in the planning stages. Current discussions surround phasing it in and he also said the creation of the park designed to showcase pioneer history will be “volunteer-driven.”

Rosenberg concluded by mentioning that the closure of his long time in the mayor’s seat isn’t far off. And it has to do with a road.

The first two phases of improvements to Vineyard Road have been completed and the final phase will be underway in the next year. 

“How many remember driving Vineyard Drive before last year? A few of you did. It was a cow path,” Rosenberg said. “It was one of the reasons why I ran for office to try and get it fixed. Vineyard will be done, and I can go home, and I can tell her I’m done. My list is complete. I can move on.”

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