The State of Utah sold the development rights to for a new town to SunCor, a developer that had to bail on the project before it was half-completed. Utah bought the ailing, incomplete town from the developer and is hoping their gamble pays off.
David Harrison tells the story of Coral Canyon. Over the past couple of years, the development has been losing businesses and people to foreclosures. When SunCor decided to pull out, Utah decided it was in the best interest of the state to take over the project.
It is an unusual step for states to take ownership of such a large development though:
"Utah's arrangement is relatively rare among state land agencies. In Arizona, for instance, the state can only sell land through public auctions and has less say in what happens to the land after it sells. But the model could become more common in Western states as the collapse in land prices forces state land agencies to find new ways to make money, says Armando Carbonell of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts," writes Harrison.
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