Provo Weighs a Hotel Deal Next to Epic Sports Park: What Is Proposed and What the City Would Give Up

Provo is weighing a deal for a hotel beside its west-side tournament fields. A developer called Philo wants to build a 137-room hotel, a gas station and convenience store, a restaurant and retail space on about five acres of city-owned land at Lakeview Crossing, near Epic Sports Park and the Provo Airport. The Daily Herald put the project's cost at about $35 million and the land's value at about $4.3 million.

The agreement went to the City Council for approval in early October. The council did not vote on it. After a work session that day, members continued the item, asking for a concept plan and pressing on how much the city would give up and whether it would earn anything back.

What the developer would build, and what it would owe

The proposal, as reported by the Daily Herald:

What Provo would give back

The incentives are tax rebates over time rather than cash up front. The estimates below are the Herald's figures from the city's analysis:

• Property tax: 100% of the city's property tax revenue from the land for 19 years, about $58,000 a year.
• Sales tax: 30% of the sales tax increment for 10 years, about $20,000 a year.
• Hotel room tax: 30% of transient room tax revenue for 10 years, about $30,000 a year.

The Provo City School District made its own commitment last month: 80% of its property tax revenue from the development for 15 years, about $250,000 a year, through a separate tax increment agreement with the city's redevelopment agency and Philo.

City staff projected that the city's annual revenue from the site would exceed its annual costs by 2028, that the deal would reach a net benefit by 2040 once total benefit passes the land value plus the incentives, and that the net benefit would reach $2.3 million by 2045.

Why the council paused

Two questions came up. The first was what the city actually gets: members wanted to see the size of the incentives against the revenue. The second was the west side itself. One council member said there are "real concerns by real people on the west side" about not getting anything from the deal.

Cody Hill, who directs the city's economic development division, made the case for the site at a joint city and school district meeting the week before: "This is an area in west Provo where I think there is a massive amount of opportunity for economic growth and development."

Why here

The argument for a hotel at Lakeview Crossing is the traffic that already comes. Epic Sports Park opened in 2024 and last year hosted about 98,000 visitors for youth tournaments, with an estimated $13.57 million in local economic impact. For families coming in for a tournament now, our where to stay in Provo guide covers the current options. The site also sits next to an airport that passed one million annual passengers for the first time last year and is expanding its terminal.

What happens next

No new date had been set when this was written. The next step is a concept plan from the developer, then the agreement returning to the council. Provo posts council agendas on Utah's Public Notice Website and its own agenda center, and the item can be followed there.

The same council is also working through the Provo Towne Centre redevelopment, the other large private project on its desk this fall.

Related: Youth sports in Utah Valley · Epic Sports Park guide