LEHI, UT-Forest City Enterprises is planning a one-million-sf open-air center here modeled after Victoria Gardens, a project the Cleveland-based REIT opened in Rancho Cucamonga, CA last year. Company executives say they expect the Terrace at Traverse Mountain to cost $180 million to build with ground breaking in early 2008 and an opening in the spring of 2009.

The center, off Interstate 15, between Salt Lake City and Provo, is part of a four-million-sf Traverse Mountain master-planned community. Already near the site is a 150,000-sf Cabela's outdoor superstore.

Traverse Mountain will have two department stores, a movie theater and about 400,000 sf of restaurant and small-shop space. Forest City is also trying to secure plans to build a community arts center at the site, similar to the one at Victoria Gardens. Other anchors at that 1.2-million-sf center include J.C. Penney, Macy's and Robinsons-May.

The stores will be geared toward the area household incomes of $82,000, Colm Macken, president of Forest City's Western Region, says. And more upper-income rooftops are likely to follow in the area, he says. "The attraction here is that most of the high-end housing is going into this area. It's just going to get better over time."

Forest City is building a number of projects west of the Rockies. Last month it opened the 600,000-sf, open-air Simi Valley (CA) Town Center. The developer is also opening centers in Stapleton, a master planned community it is building in Denver, as well as two regional developments in that city's suburbs. It is redeveloping the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall in that city's Downtown with the Australia-based Westfield Group.

Forest City owns 41 regional malls and specialty centers across the country. The company also develops other major commercial properties such as the New York Times' headquarters, which is under construction in Midtown Manhattan, as well as residential developments.