NORTH SALT LAKE — By next spring, Eaglewood Village will be growing along with the flowers. Yesterday, Dec. 5, was the official groundbreaking for North Salt Lake’s Eaglewood Village, a mixed-use, walkable development that will serve as the new gateway into the city.

Rep. Paul Neuenschwander (R-20), North Salt Lake Mayor Shanna Schaefermeyer, and dozens of others were on hand to witness the moment, which marks a major step in the two-and-a-half years of planning that have gone into making this community a reality.

“Walkable, mixed-use developments are really where the future is. You can’t keep building subdivisions and expecting people to travel 20-30 miles to work,” said Mayor Schaefermeyer during her comments at the groundbreaking. “Eaglewood Village is a vision, and something North Salt Lake has been wanting for a long time.”

Eaglewood Village, which is planning to start vertical construction next spring after a winter of completing site work, will include a mix of retail, office and residential spaces, as well as a trail system that interconnects all areas of the community and stretches outward toward downtown Salt Lake City.

At the groundbreaking, Compass Development, the major group behind Eaglewood Village, sketched out a timeline as to when these plans will start to become visual reality, starting with the planned completion of the first residential spaces in late 2008. The first office spaces will be available for occupancy in early 2009.

Though no date was set for when residents can start seeing the first of Eaglewood Village’s retail spaces, a grocer (Compass Development would not reveal the name) has already signed a letter of intent to occupy a 40,000-square-foot space and serve as an anchor tenant for the retail portion of the village.

“In just a few years Eaglewood Village residents will be able to walk to work and shopping, and other North Salt Lake residents won’t have to go to surrounding communities to fill their needs,” said Steve Lowe, principal for Compass Development. “This area will become a vibrant gateway into Davis County and North Salt Lake.

“In all my years this is the most exciting development with which I’ve been associated, and probably the most difficult.”

Those difficulties are much of the reason that the project has taken years to get to this point, involving coordination between North Salt Lake officials and staff, state agencies including UDOT, and surrounding neighbors to smooth out the details that come with a project of this size.

Many of those details are still being worked out, including geotechnical issues that have arisen out of the site’s previous existence as a gravel pit. Compass started work on stabilizing the ground on the site a few weeks ago.

At the groundbreaking, Compass Development principal Ben Lowe thanked by name more than a dozen people who have helped in the process, including several members of the North Salt Lake city staff.

Even Rep. Neuenschwander, who spoke at the groundbreaking after a surprise request by Mayor Schaefermeyer, acknowledged the effort that has already gone into the project.

“There are three kinds of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened,” he said. “Here, we have people who make things happen.”