SALT LAKE CITY – Six months ago, the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) appeared to be an invincible juggernaut rolling across the Utah’s landscape leaving data centers and other developments in its wake.
Now, even a first-term Utah lawmaker is preparing to challenge that agency with reform legislation.
Utah has a responsibility to support military readiness, protect critical defense infrastructure, and ensure service members have the facilities and resources they need, according to Utah Rep. Jason Thompson (R-River Heights), so MIDA was organized for the purpose of strengthening Utah’s military communities and supporting military readiness.
Over the years, however, MIDA’s authority has expanded into projects that appear increasing removed from any military connection, he adds.
Created in 2007, MIDA is an independent state entity that was originally established to support Utah’s various military missions. Over the years, its charter has expanded into developments designed to primarily generate tax revenue.
The organization has a current fiscal year budget estimated at over $70 million. With about two dozen employees and an eight-member advisory board, MIDA currently oversees six project areas statewide.
Those include the 525-acre Falcon Hill aerospace research park at Hill Air Force Base; a 235-acre data center at Camp Williams; road improvements at Dugway Proving Grounds; the Mountain Veteran Project at the Sundance Mountain Resort; a Military Recreation Facility at Deer Valley; and a statewide management plan for all 27 areas controlled by the Utah National Guard.
In spring of this year, however, the MIDA juggernaut ran headlong into furious pubic opposition when the state entity became involved with controversial Stratos Data Center Project in Box Elder County.
As originally proposed by O’Leary Digital and MIDA, the Stratos Project would have been a 40,000-acre hyperscale data center slated to be created in the remote Hansel Valley area of Box Elder County.
An estimated 600 opponents of the project gathered at the Box Elder Fairgrounds in Tremonton on May 4 to voice their displeasure at the prospect of veritable industrial city being sited in the rural county.
When the Box Elder commissioners forged ahead despite that opposition, vocal advocacy groups sprang up in Box Elder overnight and incumbent commissioners Boyd Bingham and Lee Perry lost their re-election bids in GOP primary balloting on June 23.
The MIDA board may also be obliged to replace its chairman in coming months, since Utah Senate President Stuart Adams (R-Layton) was also turned out of office by GOP primary voters.
Amid growing public opposition to the proposed Box Elder development, Dan Hemmert has been selected as the new executive director of MIDA by a unanimous vote of the group’s board of directors, replacing Paul Morris who had served in that role since 2008.
Now Thompson wants to curtail MIDA even further by turning the clock back to the state entity’s core purpose.
“My proposed legislation would limit MIDA’s land-use authority to projects located within five miles of a military installation and only when those projects are directly related to military training, operational readiness or the security of military facilities,” he emphasizes.
“Recreational developments and AI data center projects would not qualify unless the land and facilities are entirely owned by the federal government.”
Thompson was elected to the Legislature in 2024, replacing longtime lawmaker Dan Johnson.
He is seeking re-election in November, competing against Independent candidate and environmental activist Patrick Belmont.