Last July, the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority (Land Authority) announced the departure of Alan Matheson and a national search for a new Executive Director for The Point.  Two months later, the Land Authority introduced Mike Ambre as their new leader. Ambre hails from Utah and comes from within the ranks, having served on the Land Authority board as division director for the Utah Division of Facilities Construction and Management (DFCM). Notably, Ambre has overseen construction of the new prison as well as demolition and abatement of the old prison to make way for development of The Point. The October announcement indicated Ambre has developed a track record of delivering public projects ahead of schedule and under budget. 

“Mike is exactly the right person at the right time…His leadership has already proven immensely valuable to the success of The Point and we are confident that he will hit the ground running on day one,” read an October statement from Land Authority Co-Chair Jordan Teuscher. 

Ambre is no stranger to the area. He grew up in Sandy near Alta High School and he remembers riding his bike to Draper as a kid. He graduated from Judge Memorial High School, started college at Utah State, and transferred to Weber State. He graduated with a degree in Construction Management and he has worked for the state for nearly 25 years. During that time, Ambre has overseen hundreds of construction projects, including the new North Capitol Building which completes the 20-year master plan on Utah’s Capitol Hill. 

“I started at the bottom in Facilities Management and worked my way up to the largest project the state has undertaken, the new prison,” he said. 

Ambre describes development of The Point with excitement. “It’s a rare opportunity. You’ve got this 600-acre parcel that’s the bullseye between Salt Lake City and Utah County. It has the potential of really being a cutting edge, urban, sustainable community with innovation too, a hub that creates good jobs for Utah citizens,” he said.

Despite The Point’s national search for a new Executive Director, Ambre believes he was chosen based on his experience managing design and construction of the new prison. “That’s a city. You have everything from dentistry to Jiffy Lube, and you feed 4,000 people a day,” he said. 

Ambre also thinks having been in state government for 24 years and the relationships he has built in Utah for more than two decades led to him being chosen as The Point’s new leader. “I’m very plugged into the design and construction community. I’ve lived here and I understand how to navigate the politics and the key stakeholders,” he said. 

He is complimentary of his predecessor Matheson for having been a “visionary planner-type person who did all the heavy lifting when it came to imagining what this could be and look like.” Subsequently, Ambre says he himself is “the guy that we need to implement the plan now,” including complicated agreements and negotiations. 

Ambre has traveled both the country and the world, and he said those travels influence his vision for what he’d like to see implemented at The Point. “We’ve done tons of studies with mobility and what will be here in 40 or 50 years that we haven’t thought about. I’ve been to Europe where the streets are a lot narrower, they have a more urban feel, they’re tree lined and quaint. That’s part of the environment we’re trying to create here,” he said. He’s also visited New Zealand, and though he didn’t see it personally, he learned about a “Sky Lift” or cable car/gondola there. “It’s a way to transport people around a city without using a traditional automobile,” he said.  

Ambre would like to assuage people’s fears about problematic traffic The Point might create, particularly for Draper residents since The Point falls within city limits. “The entire philosophy behind this design is to limit vehicle use. We’re trying to implement a different mindset with an urban feel and different options than driving a car, things like taking a ‘Circulator,’ Bus Rapid Transit, light rail, biking and walking. We’re trying to change people’s mindset on how to navigate through this community,” he said.

Regarding art at The Point, studies have been done and a 305-foot-tall “Statue of Responsibility” has been mentioned as a possibility. The design of that sculpture is intended to act as a “bookend” on the Pacific Coast to the Statue of Liberty on the Atlantic Coast. Ambre said that statue remains a possibility, but no specific decisions have been made. Thus far, it’s been a matter of identifying locations for public art at the site and deciding how that art will be financed, procured and maintained. 

According to Ambre, the timeline for the next 18 months at The Point will start with the movement of dirt in early 2025 to strategic locations using large equipment. That dirt will eventually anchor a bridge to gap the River to Range trail, but dirt must first be piled and allowed to consolidate over months to form a proper anchor for future projects. In the next six months and beyond, equipment will be digging trenches and installing pipe. Roads will begin to be constructed in the next 12 to 18 months. 

“It’s been talked about and planned for so long, the most exciting part is to see it implemented. We’re going to start to see utilities, and in the first quarter of 2027 we should have our first occupied building,” Ambre said.  λ