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MIDVALE — Wednesday brought big news of a new recreation golfing experience coming to Utah and with it comes the start of exciting times for Midvale.
Topgolf is an entertainment center focused on a golfing experience. It has a huge amount of driving ranges and simulators for different ages and experience level, but also brings something extra, and this will add to the Midvale area.
Topgolf has 16 locations now and serves over 4 millions guests at those locations. While there are golf simulators, there are also other mini-games for those who don't have a lot of experience or skill, but still want to have fun.
"When you go to Topgolf's website you get a feeling that it's much more than a driving range," said Christopher Butte, Midvale's economic development director. "It's a full entertainment complex, they have great food and great gathering places and meeting areas and dynamic sports bar-type atmosphere."
Butte is excited after the announcement by Topgolf to come to his city. He talks about the fact that although Midvale is in the middle of the valley, there is very little in terms of attractions to keep residents or travelers in the area.
"We don't capture a lot of recreational, tourist types; we don't have a lot of those facilities like some of the other cities have," Butte said.
Butte talked about the ability for golfing at night after spending the day skiing up the canyon. The three-level Topgolf site will be 3,000 square feet that will have private event areas and 102 climate-controlled bays that will be able to host six players at a time.
Downtown has museums, and a zoo, there are aquariums to the south, RSL and the Jazz are north of the city. This can be a huge blessing to Midvale looking to keep some people in their area.
Topgolf will build in Bingham Junction, the area west of the freeway at around 7200 S. and 1000 W. an area that is booming for businesses and as a redevelopment site.
"Bingham Junction is a redevelopment site for the city, and it's actually been recognized nationally by the EPA and stuff as one of the top redevelopment sites in the entire country," Butte said. "And as part of it, it's got a mix use and it also has access to the Trax line that goes down to Daybreak and connects up to Salt Lake City, University of Utah and the Airport."
The area will soon be host to the new corporate office of Overstock.com and Butte said that there have been thousands of jobs created in the area including the first Utah Winco located right in that area.
While it might seem that this is just another company coming in to take money and space according to Butte the companies in the area are ready to welcome Topgolf.
"To be honest all those corporations and companies and the hotels across the street that are all a part of that View 72 Corporate Center, they're all ecstatic," Butte said, "because it's basically going to add a lot more venue and stuff when they have corporate guests and visitors and salespeople come in and say, 'Hey let's go over here and have lunch,' and have a setting that fits in a time schedule or a meeting place."
The Bingham Junction area also has a steadily building residential community full of apartments that will benefit from local recreational entertainment year-round. The companies won't be the only ones excited about the new arrival.
"The opportunity to have a recreational facility like Topgolf in that same area, in that business park, is going to be a huge advantage for all those people who live in that city as well," Butte said.
According to Topgolf they expect they will create up to 450 full- and part-time jobs that it can bring over $264.5 million over a 10-year period.
Contributing: Dave Cawley
