Redwood Swap Meet vendors out by Dec. 22 as redevelopment edges ahead

WEST VALLEY CITY — Vendors at the Redwood Swap Meet have to vacate the site by late December to make way for planned new housing.

Redwood Swap Meet managers advised the vendors last week that the Dec. 21-22 weekend would be the last one for the popular outdoor bazaar, presenting them with a formal written notice of the departure date. “They went stand-by-stand, making us sign the paper,” said Cristian Carbajal Gutierrez, a vendor who has helped spearhead efforts protesting the city’s plans.

Beyond that, he’s not sure about the timeline for redevelopment of the 26-acre site, which doubles as the Redwood Drive-In, one of the last drive-in theaters in Utah. Draper-based EdgeHomes plans to clear the site and build 300 housing units at the location at 3688 S. Redwood Road, including 244 two-story townhomes, 40 three-story condominiums, and 16 single-family homes.

EdgeHomes reps on Monday didn’t respond to queries seeking comment and a West Valley City official referred queries to the developer. While city officials approved the rezoning of the commercial property on Sept. 17 — allowing the housing project to proceed — they otherwise aren’t involved in the development.

“We have zero role with the swap meet,” said West Valley City spokesman Sam Johnson.

The development proposal pitted the vendors, many of them Latin American immigrants who rely on the income they earn at the swap meet to survive, against a developer and the intense demand for new housing. Carbajal Gutierrez and other vendors had pressed city officials to maintain the commercial zoning designation, hoping to preserve the property for use by the small business operators and perhaps other businesses as well. Proponents of the change, though not legally bound to approve the rezone allowing the residential proposal to move forward, stressed the importance of the landowner’s property rights.

An entity called De Anza Land and Leisure Corp. of Los Angeles, California owns the Redwood property, but the principals in the family-owned business are aging, which spurred their plans to sell the land to EdgeHomes. Along the way, vendors and their proponents showed up at varied gatherings of West Valley officials as they weighed the plans to air their concerns, sometimes crowding the municipal building and holding signs reflecting their opposition.

While the timeline to clear the expansive Redwood site hasn’t been publicly revealed, Carbajal Gutierrez said he and other advocates for the vendors have been searching for a new site where they can relocate. “They’re not sure what to do, where they’re going to store their items, how they’re going to get money. … (For) a lot of people, that’s their only way of getting money,” he said.

Swap meet sales typically go down in the winter, though, and he’s hoping a new location can be pinpointed in time to have the vendors back up and operating by next March. Potential sites include the Utah State Fairpark in Salt Lake City, Centennial Park in West Valley City, and the grounds of Salt Lake Community College in Taylorsville. “All of these that I’m mentioning, we’re still in talks with them,” Carbajal Gutierrez said.