D.R. Horton has broken ground on a 63-unit, for-sale townhome project in Sandy that will offer four-bedroom homes starting around $550,000 — a price point roughly $150,000 below the area's median single-family home cost. The project, called Sandy Station, sits on 3.71 acres at 8925 S. Harrison St., just east of Interstate 15, and curves around a transitional housing facility that serves medically vulnerable and elderly residents.
D.R. Horton and Sandy City officials broke ground on the project on August 24, according to a Sandy news release cited by Building Salt Lake. Sandy Mayor Monica Zoltanski called the groundbreaking an opportunity to create opportunities for people to call Sandy home, and said many adults raised in Sandy are unable to remain there after seeking a home of their own. She added that the homes are being created through private investment.
Each of the three-level townhomes will span more than 2,000 square feet with four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a two-car garage, according to David Kelly, D.R. Horton's entitlements manager, per the same account. The builder's own website describes the Sandy Station units as blending modern design with classic features. D.R. Horton, the project's developer, closed 84,863 homes across 36 states and 126 markets in fiscal year 2025, making it the nation's largest homebuilder by volume since 2002, according to the company's investor relations filings.
A Missing-Middle Fix for a Pricey Market
Sandy Station is designed to fill a gap in the local housing stock often called “missing middle” housing — homes denser than a single-family lot but smaller in scale than an apartment complex. The project supports that goal directly, according to the release cited by the outlet. The Sandy Planning Commission approved site plan and subdivision reviews for the development by unanimous vote in November 2025.
The timing matters because Sandy's housing market has grown increasingly out of reach. The median home sale price in Sandy hit $699,619 in mid-2026, up 6.8% from the same period the year before, according to Redfin, with homes selling after a median of just 25 days on the market. Countywide, Salt Lake County's median single-family home price rose 4.88% from the previous year, reaching $645,000 in the second quarter of 2026.
Part of the pressure traces back to zoning. Roughly 88% of residential land in Salt Lake County is zoned exclusively for detached single-family homes, a structural constraint that forces developers to seek conditional use permits or specific rezonings just to build townhomes, per the Utah Housing Coalition and KSL TV. That dynamic helps explain why regional inventory remained tight at 3.1 months in July 2026, well below the four-to-six-month range economists consider balanced, according to Utah Real Estate market reports.
State Pressure Meets Local Planning
Sandy Station also lands amid a broader state push to unlock entry-level homeownership. Utah Governor Spencer Cox established a statewide housing strategy aiming for 150,000 new housing units by December 2028, including 35,000 entry-level starter homes backed by a $300 million state investment fund, according to the Governor's office. State officials formally created the Division of Housing and Community Development in July 2026 to coordinate that funding and speed up homebuilding.
Utah lawmakers also debated House Bill 184 in 2026, legislation that sought to set minimum 5,400-square-foot lot standards and grant automatic project approval if municipalities failed to act within 30 days, according to the Housing Affordability Institute. The bill reflected an ongoing fight over how much authority the state should have to override local land-use control.
Locally, Sandy Station falls within “The Cairns,” the city's roughly 1,000-acre downtown master plan bounded by 9000 South, 11400 South, I-15, and the TRAX light rail line, according to the Congress for New Urbanism Utah Chapter. Adopted in 2018 to replace earlier high-rise concepts, the plan emphasizes walkable growth tied to transit. The project will be accessed via Harrison Street at its north end, with a 9000 South entrance reserved solely as an emergency access point for first responders. Residents will be within walking distance of the Sandy Expo Center TRAX stop on the Blue Line, plus America First Field and, with a further walk, the Mountain America Expo Center.
Neighbors With a Different Kind of Housing Need
The townhomes curve around the Medically Vulnerable People, or MVP, transitional housing facility to the east — a non-walk-in shelter operated by The Road Home that serves medically vulnerable or elderly people. The nonprofit Shelter the Homeless purchased the former EconoLodge hotel at that Harrison Street address in August 2023 to establish the facility, which offers up to two years of interim shelter and medical care for unhoused seniors, veterans, and medically frail individuals, according to Sandy City records.
Sandy Station will include its own homeowners association responsible for maintaining common grounds. Ensign Engineering and Land Surveying designed the project, with PKJ Design Group serving as landscape architect; Interim Capital, LLC is listed as the project's owner and investor. Sandy city staff worked closely with D.R. Horton throughout the development process, and the townhomes are targeted for completion by early summer 2027.
The groundbreaking arrives against a backdrop of budget tension at Sandy City Hall. The City Council overrode Mayor Zoltanski's budget veto in July, stripping $95,000 in regional canyon dues to redirect capital toward local infrastructure needs like water main replacements, as per Hoodline. Sandy Station represents a separate, privately financed project moving forward, even as city leaders continue to spar over how public dollars should be spent closer to home.
