St. George • One of St. George Mayor Michele Randall’s main focuses over the coming year will be working with state and county leaders to ease area traffic gridlock by getting the Northern Corridor Highway reapproved.
That was a top concern the mayor mentioned following her State of the City address at the Dixie Convention Center Tuesday.
“We really need the Northern Corridor,” Randall told The Tribune about the recently nixed road that was aimed at cutting congestion on St. George streets by as much as 15%. “That’s one of the things we’ll be fighting for in 2025.”
In December, the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the right-of-way for the polarizing road project that was previously granted in 2021 during the first Trump administration.
The federal agencies scrapped approval for the road, which would have cut across the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area, after a final environmental study found the four-lane road would spread noxious weeds, stoke more wildfires and destroy critical habitat for the Mojave desert tortoise and other endangered species.
New city hall
Beyond that concern, there was nary a discouraging word in Randall’s State of the City presentation that highlighted some of St. George’s coming attractions or signature achievements over the past year.
Chief among them is the new $45 million city hall that is under construction at 61 S. Main – a historical nod, Randall noted, to the year 1861 when Brigham Young sent 309 families to settle in the area. Once construction is completed next October, the nearly 70,000-square-foot municipal center will more than double the current city hall building at 170 E. 200 North that was built in 1980.
The new city hall’s council chambers, which will seat 300 compared to the 150 capacity of the current chambers, can be easily converted to a community room, training room or space for public forums or other events. Adjacent to the new city hall, Randall added, will be a four-level parking garage that will offer three times as many parking spaces as the current facility.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Downtown St. George, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024.
Randall also touted the steps the city has taken to shore up St. George’s water supply, a major worry this year with nearly all of Washington County mired in severe drought. In 2024, the city completed a $65 million upgrade to its regional wastewater treatment plant that has boosted its capacity to treat wastewater from 17 million gallons to nearly 25.5 million gallons per day.
It is part of an effort to ditch the use of drinking water for outdoor watering and replace it with treated wastewater. The city also has replaced a 130,000-gallon steel tank in Hidden Valley with a one million-gallon concrete tank, St. George Energy Services Director Bryan Dial said in one of the videos.
Among the many other projects highlighted during the mayor’s presentation is a plan to build an air traffic tower at St. George Regional Airport that could be completed in 2026. Randall said the design is nearly complete for the estimated $15 million tower, which could enhance public safety by better controlling the ever-increasing flow of private and commercial flights arriving and departing from the airport.
Low salaries, high home prices
Randall also lauded the strides St. George is making in affordable housing. As evidence, she pointed to the 539 building permits that were issued in 2024 for townhomes, condos and apartments, more than double the 205 issued in 2021.
“Sometimes we are accused … of not allowing enough multifamily options, [but] as you can see that simply isn’t the case,” the mayor said.
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) St. George Mayor Michele Randall delivers her 2025 State of the City address at the Dixie Convention Center on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025.
For his part, 32-year-old St. George resident Carter Evans loves the area but doesn’t share the mayor’s optimism. After buying a home two years ago, he lost a good-paying job as a property manager when the company he worked for was sold and has struggled ever since to find a job that pays enough to make a decent living.
“My wife and I are working full time, but the jobs in St. George don’t pay enough,” said Evans, who now works as a bartender. “We are barely getting by making our car, insurance and mortgage payments each month.”
Workers in the St. George area earn, on average, $24.72 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Evans said that is not enough for most people his age to afford a single-family home. The median for a house sold in the area is nearly $520,000, according to the most recent report from the Washington County Board of Realtors.
