Owning a business is a dream come true for many, but when disaster strikes, it can bring reality crashing down. From electrical fires to road construction to putting trust in the wrong people, anything can happen. For some businesses, there’s no opportunity to bounce back. But these four business owners found a way to push through.

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Reopening after fire and water damage

In August 2025, a kitchen fire on Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City quickly spread to neighboring buildings. Directly next to the building where the fire started, Whiskey Street suffered from both fire and smoke damage. White Horse, next door to Whiskey Street, thankfully didn’t catch on fire, but was still destroyed by water damage. Jason LeCates, co-owner of White Horse and Whiskey Street, says he was inspired by the way the community showed its support, and they reopened White Horse in January 2026.

“Arriving there that morning [after the fire] and [we saw that] everybody that cared about the business was right there to greet us and just to tell us that they’re there to help us.

The mayor had people there with the city, offering us support and promising that they would help expedite things. I met with the landlord right out front; they love Main Street just like we love Main Street, so we committed to each other right there to rebuild. It’s just crazy how many people reached out via text or social media — it was literally overwhelming. It took me a couple of days even to reply to everyone, making sure they knew I appreciated it; even if I couldn’t respond with a note, at least I could let them know that I got their message, and that was cool.

By the next morning, the city had revived the ‘tip your server’ program from COVID-19 and started requesting donations with a half-a-million dollar goal because our staff woke up without a job. They reached their goal, and all of our employees benefited. I think everyone was able to land on their feet.”

— Jason LeCates

Co-owner, White Horse and Whiskey Street

Recovering from closures due to construction

Hopkins Brewing Company in Sugar House recently celebrated its seventh anniversary. In those seven years, the business has dealt with COVID and construction on 2100, which made accessing business entrances difficult. Chad Hopkins, owner of Hopkins Brewing Company, used social media to reach people, encouraging them to come by and support both the brewery and other businesses on his street. In 2025, construction was completed and 2100 has reopened.

“As soon as [the city] started working on 2100 South two years ago, it made it so hard to get to our business. People stopped coming in, and it was hard to find parking. There was a steady decline in sales for all the businesses around here, and we’ve even lost a few businesses.

When I started to feel the effects of what was going on, I started making videos and doing social media. There are whole videos of me walking around, showing all the different ways you can come in, all the places you can park. I recorded other businesses and gave them a shoutout, and I would do a weekly construction update video, which helped people to start coming in. That was huge.

It’s been a really stressful year for business owners. The only way you’re going to make it is if your community helps you out.”

— Chad Hopkins

Owner, Hopkins Brewing Company

Redefining your business model after an electrical fire

For nearly a year, Maven Cinemas was housed in the old Sticky Shoe Theater in American Fork. But after an electrical fire in 2024, the theater closed. Since then, Dvorah Governale, who co-founded Maven Cinemas with her husband, and her team have pushed on with community event partnerships and are working toward reopening and revamping the services they provide to the community.

“We were actually fulfilling the dream of a lot of people in the community. You could just see that for some people, it was the location itself that has been there for almost 75 years. There are a lot of memories, nostalgia and emotional connection to that space. For some people, it was the events that we were putting on, but those films and our events were what really caused an emotional connection and experience for people.

[After the fire], we actually had several emails from people in the community wanting to show support. Some of them were people who had been and loved it so much and wanted to get it reopened, and some of them were people who had heard about us after the fire and were sad to have missed it and wanted it to reopen so they could experience it. So we put a board together, and we’re working on our non-profit paperwork.

We always felt like this should be a non-profit because the profit margins are pretty slim. The other reason though was not just because we felt like it would help to keep the doors open and keep the business alive; it was also because we have seen the benefits of storytelling in our communities and the way that it impacts people. We know that there’s a lot that this type of cinema can offer.”

— Dvorah Governale

Co-founder, Maven Cinemas

Overcoming the obstacle of having the wrong person in the wrong position

With over 30 years in business and as the COO and co-founder of Cedar Bear Naturales Inc., Jhoane Robinson has seen and survived a lot: the 2008 recession, stolen intellectual property, and putting her trust in the wrong person to manage her finances. It took three years to restructure and rebuild her company.

“We’ve been through many of the types of challenges a business might face. But we developed a philosophy early on that we do impossible well. Some of the things we’ve had to come through are what others might consider impossible, but we do the impossible well.

Going through all we have, it’s given me real confidence in myself. I learned to focus, even when you get discouraged. Learn from it and go on. You can’t make every call right, you can’t make every decision right, but you’ve got to keep on keeping on.”

— Jhoane Robinson

Co-founder, Cedar Bear Naturales Inc.

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“We almost couldn’t believe what we were seeing in terms of growth opportunity,” Tyler says. “It just got us excited about the long-term prospects.”

Wanting to see the growth potential through, the Gordon brothers offered to buy a controlling share in BaseCamp, the parent company of Uptown Cheapskate and Kid to Kid. For BaseCamp co-founders Brent and Shauna Sloan, who are still actively involved in the business, both as franchisees and board members, the offer came at the right time. But more importantly, it came from the right people.

“My wife and I recognized that to grow [BaseCamp] into a company, say, the size of a Winmark, we needed different skill sets than we had … and these were the right guys to do it,” Brent says. “I’m very pleased with what they’re doing. I think they’ve been tremendous partners.”

Combining Zach’s background in franchising with Restaurant Brands International and Tyler’s background in private equity investing, the brothers appeared to have the skills and experience to take BaseCamp Franchising to the next level. And in just over three years, they’ve done exactly that.

As of 2025, Uptown Cheapskate and Kid to Kid boasted over 280 operating stores across the U.S., with more than 50 in development. Since the Gordon brothers joined the BaseCamp team three years ago, system-wide sales are up 50 percent, and they recently surpassed the $300 million mark.

So, how did they do it? By troubleshooting processes and ensuring they’re as streamlined as possible.

More process, more preparation

When Zach and Tyler took the reins at BaseCamp, there wasn’t a comprehensive set of tools or roadmap for opening new stores. Instead, the information was scattered. Many employees across franchises held a piece of the operations puzzle.

Now, Zach says, they have an 10-person team fully dedicated to the new store process.

“It’s operations, store design and construction, [and] marketing,” Zach says. “We have the entire process mapped out.”

In addition to a dedicated new store team to help franchisees, Zach designed the new store playbook to guide franchisees through the process of opening a new store.

“We’re always making improvements, frankly, we never reach the standard of perfection that we vie for, but I’d say that pretty much everything you need to know from our experience is in what we call the new store playbook,” Zach says, “and then all of the accompanying processes that we have around that kind of core roadmap in the new store playbook.”

That internal shift had great external results. In 2024, Zach says new stores on average had really strong grand opening weekend sales. This year, they’ve opened even more stores, and the average grand opening weekend sales are up two times, representing a 100 percent improvement.

“You can’t underwrite a business based on one weekend of sales. However, we’ve seen that if you have a really strong grand opening, the correlation then with having a really strong first year and then a really successful store longer term is very high,” Zach says. “It seems like more process, more preparation, more visibility into what needs to happen when, and then a team of people making sure it gets done … would lead to better results. That’s definitely what we’ve seen.”

Find the right people

Another small change with a big impact is tightening franchise applicant standards.

“If you’re a prospect, they have to really know if you have the ability to run one of these stores successfully,” Brent says. “The level of success based on the type of people we are recruiting and the processes that we’re implementing — especially on the front end — has borne tremendous dividends.”

Tyler says much of what they look for in a potential franchisee isn’t the kind of thing that will necessarily show up on a resume.

“It’s mainly about a willingness to work hard, a determination to succeed, an ability to build, manage and motivate teams, and a desire to learn from and follow our franchise systems,” he says.

Another critical factor? Realizing retail is open seven days a week.

“A lot of people think they want to be a business owner until they realize what business ownership entails,” Tyler says.

To find these sorts of people, Tyler says they’ve made two changes in particular:

1. Be extremely direct about expectations. He says they’ll even overemphasize potential challenges to applicants, so anyone who joins the franchisee community does so with eyes wide open.
2. Be highly selective. Because this is an incredible business opportunity, Tyler says they have the luxury of being selective. Currently, they reject more applications than they accept, and the bar continues to rise.

The biggest red flag, according to Tyler? Overconfidence.

“Just because you love thrifting doesn’t necessarily mean you’re well-suited to own a thrift store.”

Find the right business

Before you can find the right people to run a business, you have to find the right business. For the Gordon brothers, finding the right business requires a mix of logic and intuition.

On the logical side, Tyler says one of the major things he likes to focus on is durability.

“There are so many trends that end up being a flash in the pan,” he says. “Whether you think about a specific business or a set of industries, not just pace of growth but durability of growth is really critical.”

According to Tyler, there are two elements to trend durability. The first, and easiest, is backward-looking. With a business like BaseCamp, which has experienced steady growth since the first Kid to Kid opened in 1992, there is over 30 years of data that can be analyzed to determine durability. It’s a business that has survived years of economic turmoil and likely will continue to survive and thrive in the years to come.

The second element is a little trickier to analyze, but it provides more value, Tyler says. Forward-looking requires observing what has driven business performance historically and analyzing whether those same trends will continue for years to come.

Tyler points out that around five years ago, the idea of developing or acquiring subscale software development or software companies was attractive. But now, AI has thrown software businesses for a loop.

“You could have been right backward-looking, but unfortunately very wrong forward-looking,” Tyler says. “So there always has to be that combination of grounding yourself in what has happened historically, and really thinking, are those key drivers of business performance things I can get comfortable with on a prospective basis as well?”

Logic can’t be the only driving force, though. That’s where intuition comes in. Zach says it was vital for him and his brother to find a business that resonated with them. There’s no perfect business, he says, but it’s critical to find a company you care about.

“There’s so much opportunity ahead that easily stretches the next 10-20 years, and that was really important for the two of us. We weren’t just trying to come in and find the next stepping stone in our career, but find a thing that we can sink our teeth into and hopefully grow and add value for a very long period of time.”

Tyler Gordon

“Building a business is really tough. It takes a very long time,” Zach says. “You’re going to be working, living, breathing the industry, the business itself, day in and day out, so you want to make sure you’re doing something good that resonates with you on some level.”

Previous experience with an industry can be a huge help, he says. But perhaps more important is the “feel good” part.

“Any business where you, as a participant on the business side or as the consumer, can feel good about what you’re doing, either because it’s healthy for you or it’s healthy for the environment or sustainable, that just intuitively makes sense as a place you’d want to be,” Zach says.

Knowing that Uptown Cheapskate and Kid to Kid bring value to consumers by making things affordable, while also keeping clothing out of landfills, the Gordon brothers can feel purposeful going to work every day.

“At Burger King (working with Restaurant Brands International), I could tell people I’d sold 50,000 Whoppers in a year. I don’t feel bad about that, but I don’t feel great about it,” Zach says. “(With BaseCamp), there’s fundamental value and on top of that, you can feel really good about what you’re doing.”

This is the place

The future is bright for the Gordon brothers, and for BaseCamp, as they plan to settle in for a while.

“There’s so much opportunity ahead that easily stretches the next 10-20 years, and that was really important for the two of us,” Tyler says. “We weren’t just trying to come in and find the next stepping stone in our career, but find a thing that we can sink our teeth into and hopefully grow and add value for a very long period of time.”

That desire to commit to a business long-term was key to the Sloan family feeling good about turning over a controlling share to the brothers.

“One of the things that we liked (about Zach and Tyler) is, these were not traditional venture capital guys,” Brent explains. “They said, we don’t want to come in and do this for five years and then flip it and go do the next thing. We want to come to a place where we can put down roots, stay and maybe never leave the company. We want to grow it and grow it and grow it.”

For the Gordon brothers, Utah is the perfect place to grow the business and their families.

“We feel so incredibly fortunate to have ended up in Salt Lake City,” Tyler says. “It’s purpose-built for young families, so as far as a place or a backdrop that we, our families, our lives could be for the next several decades, I don’t think we could have bumped into a better set of circumstances.”

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Ideas can take root and grow. There’s something encouraging about thinking that what we’re doing is hopefully putting a ripple effect in Salt Lake, Utah, maybe the world.

Jennafer Martin

Jennafer Martin

Lead Organizer & Licensee | TEDxSaltLakeCity

Under Jennafer Martin’s leadership, TEDxSaltLakeCity hosted an issue-specific TED Countdown event focused on solutions to the climate crisis, marking it as one of only two U.S. cities to do so. To navigate fundraising and marketing challenges, Martin emphasized non-partisan, hopeful presentations that resonate with a shared love for the outdoors.

Jennafer Martin has been a self-proclaimed TED Talk “geek” for at least 20 years. In just her third year as the lead organizer and licensee of TEDxSaltLakeCity, she took on the extra challenge of hosting an issue-specific event — one of just two U.S. cities to do so.

In a typical year, Martin meets with an advisory board and the organizing committee to come up with a TEDx theme. But this year, the TED organization invited TEDxSLC to hold a Countdown event, a local extension of the international TED Countdown Summit.

TED Countdown is the TED organization’s first issue-specific initiative. Originally launched in 2019, the event’s purpose is “championing and accelerating solutions to the climate crisis.”

As home to the Great Salt Lake, five national parks, the aspen trees of Fishlake National Forest that make up the world’s largest living organism, and more, Utahns have a stake in environmental solutions, whether they want to be political about it or not.

Since the Great Salt Lake reached record-low levels in 2022, and evaporation of the lake due to climate change can contribute to harmful dust pollution, it makes sense to hold an environmentally focused event in Utah. But hosting such an event in a state that typically votes “red” brought its own set of challenges.

“A lot of people feel like environmental issues are partisan issues, and sometimes people equate environmental partisan issues with particular leanings,” Martin says. “So, things like fundraising were a little bit more challenging.”

Besides fundraising, Martin says that figuring out how to market the event also posed a challenge. TED rules prevent political opinions from being showcased during TED Talks, so presenters are always non-partisan. But Martin found that people tend to get “nervous” or “prickly” whenever they talk about environmental solutions. Focusing instead on a love for the outdoors helped.

“Everybody cares about the outdoors. Everybody is impacted by the environment,” Martin says. “But you have to be careful. The talk about it has been framed in ways that can be divisive.”

Despite the challenges, there are plenty of companies in Utah that are “ecologically leaning” or dedicated to preserving the outdoors that were eager to be part of the event. While finding sponsors was perhaps more challenging than it has been in years past, it worked out in the end.

For the event itself, Martin says she and her team aimed to have presenters who shared ideas that were hopeful.

“It’s not like we just get up there and start ringing the bell and start saying ‘we’re all doomed,’” Martin says. “A lot of people said that they felt like they learned things they didn’t know and that they felt really motivated to be able to go out into their lives or the community and be able to enact some of the solutions that were presented.”

It can be difficult to measure the real-world impact of an event like TEDx, or specifically TED Countdown. But ideas, Martin believes, can change the world.

“Ideas can take root and grow,” Martin says. “There’s something encouraging about thinking that what we’re doing is hopefully putting a ripple effect in Salt Lake, Utah, maybe the world.”

Housley has been at the helm of Foxglove Flowers for seven years. For those who know her, it’s unsurprising that she has made it a success. But owning a business was never Housley’s plan.

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The woman who changed her life

Housley has always had a creative mind and a passion for the arts. After taking a floriculture class in high school, she liked it enough to begin working at the Flower Basket Boutique in Provo while studying illustration at Brigham Young University. That’s where she met Courtney Carnell.

Carnell worked as Housley’s manager. A few years later, when Carnell decided to open her own shop, she knew she wanted Housley on board.

“Miriam is special,” Carnell says. “[The] one person … that I have ever worked with that I will pound down her door to get her to come back and work with me.”

Carnell hired Housley as the first employee of the brand-new Foxglove Flowers — Foxglove for short. Housley recalls helping with many of the details, such as painting shelves, building the flower cooler, planting succulents in little pots and helping with the Foxglove’s wedding “menu” design.

“Foxglove would never have been Foxglove without her, in terms of the original conception,” Carnell says. “It most definitely is what it is today because of her.”

Housley even helped facilitate conversations with the owner of Flower Basket Boutique, which Carnell bought and closed.

Carnell knew she wanted Foxglove to be different from other flower shops. Instead of offering pre-designed floral arrangements, she established a “flower bar,” where anyone can come in and explain their personal style to the florist behind the counter. The florist then curates a one-of-a-kind bouquet unique to the style described.

“We wanted the process of purchasing flowers to be a very custom and very curated experience where people would have an actual interaction with the process of the flowers. Because buying flowers is always an emotional purchase. Always,” Carnell says. “So we really made the process … a unique experience that was curated to a person’s specific needs and wants, key.”

Carnell’s husband, Ryan, likened the experience to a scene that plays out in many idyllic movies. Someone sits at a bar, shares their life story and is greeted with compassion, wisdom and advice. Both Ryan and Courtney Carnell say Housley is the flower shop owner who really connects with the people who come through the door.

“Miriam is the person behind the flowers, and [people] keep coming back because they see her as that ear of wisdom and love that creates that experience for them,” Ryan says.

When Housley graduated in 2016 with a degree in illustration and got a 9-5 job as a graphic designer, it was a bittersweet goodbye for Courtney.

“It was so hard to lose her, not only from a work and scheduling [standpoint] and having someone that’s so capable and reliable, but also she’s my friend,” Courtney says.

Then, Courtney gave birth to her son.

After years of struggling with fertility issues and enduring a dangerous and complicated pregnancy, Courtney gave birth to Dean Carnell, who was born three months premature and weighed a mere 1 lb 14 oz. Housley, who remained close with the Carnells and continued to freelance as a florist for Foxglove, remembers thinking he looked as small as a dollar bill.

Courtney describes Dean — now 8 years old — as a “beautiful and thriving ball of energy.” But when he was born, he required a high level of medical care and intervention — so much so that Courtney and Ryan Carnell realized they couldn’t take care of both their flower shop and their son.

As they deliberated over what to do with Foxglove, one name kept coming up in conversation: Miriam Housley.

“Miriam is one of the only people who is not only capable [but] can keep the vision going, expound it and make it bloom,” Courtney says.

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

As much as she loved flower arranging, working with weddings and the day-to-day aspect of working in a flower shop, Housley says she never imagined doing it forever. It was physically challenging and could lead to burnout. As for owning her own business, that was never her plan.

“I [studied] illustration in school, and I ended up at the end of school actually pivoting and just finding a graphic design job because I ironically didn’t want to work for myself,” Housley says.

When the Carnells sat down with her to discuss her buying Foxglove, it was a bit of a shock. However, the more Housley spoke with people, the more she heard stories about people who had the opportunity to start a business or buy a business but didn’t take it. Those stories of regret inspired her to take the leap.

Luckily, Housley wasn’t starting entirely from scratch. Foxglove had been in business for two years and was doing well — well enough that the Carnells admit they could have gone a more lucrative route, but it wasn’t just about the money.

“We cared more about making sure that Foxglove survived as Foxglove,” Ryan says.

Courtney adds, “Not just survive, but thrive. That was far more important to us than monetary gain.”

“I was not the poster girl for wanting to be a business owner. But after you get into it and you sort of get into the lifestyle and that ambitiousness gets fed, it’s kind of hard to stop.”

Miriam Housley

Despite Foxglove’s success, business ownership wasn’t an easy transition for Housley. Her first year owning the shop was full of personal highs and lows, including marrying her husband and then mourning the death of her father, as well as professional highs and lows.

“There was a day that I … slept on the couch in the shop because I was learning how to manage people, and learning how to schedule people and learning how much I could take,” Housley says. “But it got easier and easier. I love it now.”

Make it Foxglove-y

Housley has maintained the Carnells’ original vision that Foxglove Flowers would never be a wire service florist offering specific, pre-made arrangements. It’s not the place you go to buy a dozen red roses. It doesn’t even carry red roses. Instead, customers find unique — even “weird” — flowers they won’t find anywhere else.

“I think some [florists] are scared to get stuff that they don’t know how to use or they’re afraid the customers won’t like it,” Housley says.“People come to us because we have the weird stuff and they trust us to do it.”

It can be scary to go against expectations, but Housley’s commitment to keeping Foxglove unique is part of what’s made it a success.

“We have people say … ‘Make it Foxglove-y,’” Housley says. “It’s kind of become a catchphrase for our style.”

From providing flowers for a Ferrari event to building a mossy pond, it seems like there isn’t anything Housley can’t, or won’t, do.

“I like being a place [where] we kind of do everything,” she says.

Learning to be a business owner certainly came with a steep learning curve. Housley admits one of the hardest lessons she had to learn was how to delegate tasks, a lesson she’s had to put into practice even more with the opening of Foxglove’s second location in Murray.

“It is scary, but it is worth it to delegate enough [so] you can work on other projects,” Housley says. “It’s made more things possible for us.”

Making genuine connections

Housley cares about her clients and customers in a way that turns many of them into lifelong friends, like Christopher Jones and his daughter Sofia.

Jones moved to Provo with his family in 2016 to teach history at BYU. After visiting Foxglove to purchase a bouquet of flowers for his wife’s birthday, and getting to know Housley a bit, Jones knew it was the perfect place to bring his then 6-year-old daughter for their annual Valentine’s Day date. Understandably, Jones says, the flower shop was incredibly chaotic.

“Despite that, [Miriam] set everything aside and she took Sofia back into the refrigerator where they keep the flowers and let her pick out each and every flower to put into a small bouquet,” Jones says. “Sofia just thought it was the greatest experience.”

Jones says Sofia talked about the experience for weeks. The following year, when it came time for their traditional daddy-daughter date, she wanted to know if they would return to Foxglove and see Housley. Jones says he first checked in with Housley to make sure it would be okay, and also asked if there was a better time for them to come by.

“[Housley] said, it doesn’t matter if we’re busy. I’ll take the time for you,” Jones says.

Sofia is 13 now, and she’s visited Foxglove with her dad for seven years running. Jones says the one-on-one time he gets with his daughter is special, but he also values the time Sofia gets to interact with Housley.

“Sofia has her own professional ambitions and seeing a smart, capable, independent business owner like Miriam has been really inspiring to her,” Jones says. “It’s not just that she prepares awesome flowers and takes time for us, it’s also that [she’s] another female role model that my daughter can look up to.”

It seems like Housley is just getting started. While there are no current plans for future Foxglove locations, Housley’s new projects include mentoring other flower shops and hosting pop-up events with other small business owners. Housley says that someday, maybe she’ll even branch out from flowers and own another type of business.

“I was not the poster girl for wanting to be a business owner,” she says. “But after you get into it and you sort of get into the lifestyle and that ambitiousness gets fed, it’s kind of hard to stop.”

One thing is for sure: as Housley’s ambitions grow, so will her community. Her genuine interactions with customers and clients have led to numerous lifelong friendships.

“Sometimes, I think about my funeral someday, and I hope that my customers — or people who I met through work — will come to my funeral and share memories,” Housley says. “It’s a nice thought to be able to be involved in that way.”

It’s safe to say that the distant event will be extremely well attended. And I bet the flowers will be beautiful.

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Opportunity Zones (OZ) were first created under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 as a way to encourage economic growth and job creation in low-income communities by providing tax benefits to investors. Now, these designations have become a permanent law with the passing of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) and will be renewed every 10 years. But did the first-ever OZ designations, which sunset next year, really make a difference?

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It seems they didn’t, at least for rural communities. A paper published in 2022 found that as of 2020, only five percent of qualified OZ investments nationwide were made in rural areas.

In Utah, less than half of the 46 OZ designations are in rural counties. Those designations have largely remained unused for the past eight years.

“We’re not the prime places for investment,” Millard County Commissioner Bill Wright says. “We’re generally isolated and there’s no water.”

Jim Grover, managing director of economic growth for the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), admits there isn’t much of an incentive to invest in rural communities, even with OZ tax benefits.

“When it comes to investment, there’s a lot of looking at where growth is going to occur,” Grover explains. “In hindsight, if there were some sort of bonus or regulations in place to make it easier to potentially invest, … we probably would have seen investors be willing to take the risks.”

Grover’s point is a common critique laid against the original OZ designations. The BBB seeks to address this risk by heavily favoring rural investments over urban investments. Two ways the BBB plans to accomplish this are 1) tripling the standard step-up basis to 30 percent as opposed to the previous 10 percent, and 2) reducing the substantial improvement requirements by half. However, these additional incentives might not matter much unless Utah addresses the other major critique from rural Utah counties: the location of the OZ designations.

A 2018 press release from the GOED states that nominations for census tracts to be designated as OZ were received from the Utah Association of Governments (AOG) and reviewed by the GOED and the Department of Workforce Services. OZ designations had to meet certain requirements regarding poverty levels and median income, but AOGs were also “encouraged to speak with their local stakeholders for the submission of the census tracts.”

“The problem is, we didn’t have a say in where those opportunity zones [were located],” Beaver County Commissioner Brandon Yardley says. “If [the governor’s office] would’ve worked with the counties and said where to put these, they definitely would be more beneficial.”

Opportunity Zones vs. community reinvestment

Rural counties aren’t the only places where OZ designations didn’t always make sense. For more urban areas, including Salt Lake City and Provo, it’s difficult to tell if the designations made a difference due to the fact that they are in areas that were already seeing reinvestment.

“To the extent that developers have leveraged the program to accelerate projects and add much-needed housing to our city and state, it has been beneficial,” says Tauni Barker, communications manager for the SLC Community Reinvestment Agency. “However, the long-term impact of Opportunity Zones remains unclear, particularly in terms of sustained community benefit, affordability, and equitable development.”

In Provo, one of the four OZ designations covers the downtown area, which Provo City Redevelopment Director and Community Grant Administrator Melissa McNalley says was growing steadily before the OZ.

“I’ve been with the city for 15 years, and I’ve seen it go from several empty storefronts on Center Street to mostly full now,” McNalley says. “I think the downtown (area) was already well on its way up.”

Two of the four Provo designations have seen a lot of growth, but like Barker, McNalley pointed out that there’s no real way to know if it’s due to the OZ designations.

“We did see a significant amount of growth in both residential and commercial [in those two tracts],” McNalley says. “Whether that growth is connected to the opportunity zone designation, I’m not sure.”

Similar to AOGs, investors or developers do not need to work with cities and counties to qualify for OZ funds. Therefore, local leaders cannot currently monitor whether or not OZ designations are attracting community investment.

“In my time as economic development director, I was never made aware of any projects that utilized this program,” says Daniel Stewart, who served as the Iron County economic development director from 2014 to 2023. “It’s possible they are out there, but they did not work through me.”

The potential for success

The BBB makes OZ investments subject to more regular reporting: The United States Treasury is now required to publish annual reports on investments and semi-regular reports tracking the economic performance of designated communities compared to similar areas without designations. However, it’s unclear whether local representatives will play a role in gathering that data.

In addition to data tracking, several representatives believe there should be better direction and education to understand Opportunity Zones.

“I think an Opportunity Zone approach could be very successful if there were clearer parameters of how to utilize them and better education of the communities trying to utilize them,” says current Iron County Economic Development Director David Johnson.

One of the last key changes the BBB makes to OZ is narrowing the criteria for designation. This means there will be fewer designations in Utah and across the country overall. The GOED will assign new designations in 2026, and Grover says the governor’s office is already hard at work figuring out how best to proceed with the OZ program. In general, local representatives are supportive of the program, so long as they feel their communities can actually use it.

“An opportunity zone is an additional tool to benefit businesses and grow communities,” Johnson says. “It could be very beneficial if we have the right marketing and the right education.”

What Utah businesses should know about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and what comes next

Since first opening its doors in 1990, the Hale Center Theater in Orem has produced thousands of shows — but with just 305 seats available, its growth has been limited. Now, it will serve as storage space for The Ruth and Nathan Hale Theater (The Ruth) in Pleasant Grove.

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This new location boasts more than triple the seating capacity between two stages. Jeff Fisher, development director of the theater, expects ticket sales to double — and the theater is expected to have a huge economic impact on the area.

A proprietary study commissioned by the Hale Center Foundation for the Arts and Education and completed by LRB Public Finance Advisors projects that, from 2023-2030, The Ruth will have a total economic impact of over $714 million. In 2025 alone, the economic impact is projected to be $81.4 million. Ticket sales, concessions and classes are part of that number, but it also includes the money theater patrons will spend on retail, hotels, and restaurants in the surrounding area; wages for theater employees; and more.

“A rising tide lifts all boats.”

Ruth Hale

“[The theater] is a catalyst in the community that draws people out of their homes,” Fisher explains. “They end up gassing up their cars, grabbing groceries, eating out, maybe catching some retail, picking something up.”

This is part of the “multiplier effect,” where one money-spending event — such as the investment to build The Ruth, leads to another — locals buying tickets to shows or getting dinner before or after a performance. In another example, when more employees are hired to staff the theater, they’ll likely visit local establishments to spend their earnings. All of these spent dollars will boost the economy.

In addition to the economic impact, The Ruth will have a direct fiscal impact through direct taxation and revenues created for local, regional and state governments. The taxable revenue generated by The Ruth and surrounding businesses is projected to have a total fiscal impact of $42 million from 2023-2030, according to the aforementioned study. For 2025, the projected total fiscal impact is $4.7 million. By 2030, that number is expected to hit $7.5 million.

So, what about Orem? Orem City Public Information Officer Pete Wolfley admits the theater’s move is a cultural loss, but he’s taking an optimistic view. Orem is still home to the SCERA Center for the Arts, which puts on a variety of shows and provides arts education. With the Hale Center Theater no longer part of Orem, Wolfley says more of the city’s Cultural Arts & Recreation Enrichment tax will go to supporting the SCERA, expanding programming and enhancing show quality.

“What’s good for Pleasant Grove is also good for Orem,” Wolfley says. The benefits of The Ruth may extend throughout Utah County and even the entire state of Utah, according to the LRB Public Finance Advisors report. By 2030, the state is projected to receive over $4.5 million each year in fiscal impact in relation to the theater, as well as benefit from job creation and arts-related education for students.

According to Fisher, Ruth Hale herself was often fond of saying, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

Yes, there are theater jobs in Utah