Prepared by Teri Harman, Director of Public Outreach
Our CUV team loves Provo Canyon! And we’ve done a LOT to help protect and conserve it.
CUV helped secure a conservation easement and national monument status for Bridal Veil Falls. We also helped protect the waters of Bunnell’s Fork and are actively working to conserve nearby Slate Canyon. Provo River, which flows down the canyon, is a major tributary for Utah Lake, another place we love.
On May 19, 2026, the Vesper Amphitheatre was announced, backed by the Osmond Family. The planned venue can seat between 8,000 and 20,000 people and covers about 110 acres. This land was previously mined as a gravel pit.
CUV supports reclaiming the old gravel pit. However, a development project such as this is not a form of restoration. It’s simply another form of development.
Gravel pits have been successfully reclaimed as native plant habitats, wildlife bridges and corridor connections, mountain biking parks, sculpture parks, and other lower-impact, open-use areas.
A project this big and a venue used by so many will have a HUGE impact on the canyon. As a beloved local place for gathering, recreation, and nature conservation, the public should have a say in such a massive and permanent change.
PROVO CITY AND UTAH COUNTY officials have a responsibility to listen to the public and perform full environmental and traffic impact investigations.
ACTION ITEM: Email the following people with your concerns and questions, and ask for environmental and traffic impact investigations:
Provo City Council: council@provo.gov
Provo City Mayor, Marsha Judkins: marsha@provo.gov
Utah County Commissioners:
brandong@utahcounty.gov
skylerb@utahcounty.gov
ameliap@utahcounty.gov
Please email your concerns and questions to the officials above.
Attend the Provo Planning Commission Meeting:
- June 24, 6 PM – Council Chambers at Provo City Hall
SHARE this info with your friends and help us conserve Provo Canyon.
Thank you!
I sent this: To the Utah County & Provo City Planning Commissions and City Councils,
I am writing to formally state my opposition to the proposed Vesper Amphitheater project and its associated commercial re-zoning at the mouth of Provo Canyon. I urge the Planning Commissions and City Councils to vote NO on the commercial re-zoning request and deny any associated conditional use permits. This massive development fundamentally conflicts with the preservation mandates outlined in our local General Plans.
I write this as a Utah County resident, a biology major with academic training in local ecology, and an active researcher in water cycle education. During my early college years, I was entirely transit-dependent and relied strictly on public transit, accessing the mouth of the canyon on foot. This canyon gateway served as my only reasonably accessible sensory and psychological sanctuary from the intense rigors of academic training.
While proponents frame this project as a “harmonious hillside restoration” of a century-old gravel pit, a rigorous ecological, logistical, and socio-historical analysis reveals severe, unmitigated flaws in the proposal that violate the spirit of our city and county planning guidelines:
1. Cumulative Environmental Impact and False Restoration
Provo Canyon has been progressively degraded by heavy industrial and transit projects—from utility plants to massive highway expansions. Each has historically been approved under the guise of “mitigation,” but the cumulative result is the fragmentation of a vital ecological corridor. Replacing a mining scar with a high-density, 20,000-seat commercial amphitheater and resort villas is not ecological restoration; it is permanent urbanization. True restoration should look like a low-impact conservation easement and re-vegetation, aligning with the critical lands and open space elements of our General Plans, not a massive commercial venue.
2. Disruption of Hydrological and Riparian Systems
Introducing massive impervious surfaces (roofs, paved gathering spaces, and resort infrastructure) directly adjacent to the Provo River corridor poses an unmitigated risk to a delicate riparian buffer zone. It alters local hillside absorption dynamics and introduces urban runoff directly into a vital watershed at a time when water preservation and watershed protection are chief priorities explicitly stated in our county’s long-term planning goals.
3. The Myth of the “Harmonious” Hillside Choke Point
Developers have compared this design to open-air desert venues like Tuacahn or Red Rocks. However, unlike those expansive, isolated landscapes, the mouth of Provo Canyon is a narrow geographical bottleneck directly adjacent to a major university town. Replicating a stadium layout here fundamentally traps noise and gridlocks traffic. Furthermore, the proposed enclosed winter configuration eliminates the seasonal window of absolute silence that local wildlife and residents rely on for winter seasonal respite.
4. Transit Equity and Sensory Accessibility
The developers’ promise of “free public trail access” ignores the reality of transit-dependent, low-income, and neurodivergent community members. The mouth of Provo Canyon represents a vital, low-barrier trailhead that is uniquely accessible to those who cannot easily travel deeper into the canyon. Developing this specific choke point creates a physical and sensory blockade.
For a pedestrian stepping off the bus to access the nearby trails at Canyon View or Timpanogos Park, a massive influx of venue crowds effectively destroys the pedestrian-safe buffer zone. Vulnerable pedestrians cannot peacefully or safely navigate stadium-level crowd densities, security blockades, and intense sensory pollution on foot just to reach a public trailhead. This project effectively gentrifies the canyon gateway, walling off nature from the very people who rely on it for well-being, directly contradicting our community goals for equitable transit and recreational access.
Conclusion
An objective, systemic look at this project reveals that it simply replaces industrial pollution with intense sensory, traffic, and environmental pollution. I urge the Commission and City Council to protect the integrity of our General Plan, reject the commercial re-zoning for this massive venue, and instead preserve the mouth of Provo Canyon as a quiet, public, and genuinely accessible sanctuary for the environment and the community alike.
Sincerely,
Samuel B.
Utah County Resident and Ecological Researcher
I’m so grateful your organization exists. I found your website just this afternoon. This is the letter I sent to the Provo city council, planning commission and Mayor Marsha Judkins:
Dear Members of the Provo Planning Commission,
I am writing to provide comments on the proposed Vesper amphitheater development at the mouth of Provo Canyon.
I have professional experience conducting ecological surveys for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (now retired), and I am particularly concerned about the sensitivity of canyon ecosystems in this area. Transition zones between urban development and canyon environments are ecologically complex and can be highly vulnerable to fragmentation, disturbance, and cumulative impacts.
Based on publicly available information, I have not yet seen sufficient analysis demonstrating that the project’s full environmental impacts—beyond the immediate footprint—have been adequately evaluated. I respectfully encourage the Commission to ensure that review of this proposal includes clear, independently verifiable analysis of:
•Wildlife movement and habitat connectivity within the canyon corridor
•Noise impacts on wildlife and adjacent residential areas
•Light pollution and effects on nocturnal species
•Water runoff, erosion, and sediment transport from grading and infrastructure
•Traffic congestion and associated air quality impacts
•Emergency access and evacuation feasibility in a high-use canyon environment
While restoration of previously disturbed land is a stated project goal, such objectives must be supported by rigorous, independent ecological analysis and long-term monitoring commitments. It is also important to distinguish between restoration goals and actual ecological outcomes in canyon systems, where baseline conditions are not easily recoverable once altered.
Demonstrable mitigation measures—whether on-site design features or off-site compensatory approaches—are important tools for reducing harm, but they do not fully restore pre-development ecological function in canyon environments. Impacts such as terrain modification, soil compaction, altered hydrology, and fragmentation of wildlife corridors are typically long-term or permanent. In addition, even with mitigation, ongoing human activity including noise, lighting, and traffic can result in sustained behavioral and habitat-level effects on wildlife.
For these reasons, mitigation should be treated as impact reduction rather than restoration, and should not be relied upon to fully offset significant and potentially unavoidable environmental impacts in this canyon setting.
Approval of a project of this scale should be contingent upon a determination that impacts have been avoided or reduced to a level that is environmentally acceptable under applicable review standards, not merely compensated for elsewhere.
I respectfully encourage the Commission to ensure that any approval is contingent on complete environmental review and enforceable mitigation measures that are demonstrably sufficient for a canyon ecosystem of this sensitivity.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Stott
Provo Citizen
Please note I have zero experience dealing with city councils!
Addendum:
Even with strong development agreements and later conditions, a rezoning decision still changes what the land is legally allowed to become. Once land currently designated as open space, public land, or agricultural land is rezoned to commercial use, the range of future outcomes is fundamentally expanded.
While mitigation measures, conservation easements, and phased approvals are important tools, they do not fully restore or preserve existing ecological function or prevent long-term intensification of use within the newly allowed zoning scope.
For that reason, I would respectfully ask that the Council consider not only whether conditions can manage impacts, but whether the initial shift in zoning is appropriate for land that is currently functioning as part of the canyon–valley transition zone.
Thanks for considering this comment.
Save Provo Canyon it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen please do not ruin it.