Quincy Townhomes
16 townhomes and 4 live-work units · Millcreek, UT
Quincy Townhomes is 20 homes on 900 East in Millcreek, Utah, finished in July 2025. We designed it for Strength PC, and J-Corp Development built it.
The four homes facing 900 East are live-work units, with a ground-floor office or shop under two floors of living space and a big roof deck on top. Behind them are 16 townhomes in three buildings. Each one has two bedrooms plus an office that works fine as a third, and its own two-car garage.
This is more of a suburban product than a downtown one. The homes are bigger, most of them can sleep a family, and the project was subdivided so each home can be sold on its own.
Project Stats
Status | Completed - July 2025
Location | 4364 S 900 E, Millcreek, UT
Building Size | 42,184 SF
Site Size | 0.99 acres
Number of Units | 20 (16 townhomes and 4 live-work units)
Buildings | 4, three stories
Zoning | C-2, mixed use
Parking | 40 garage stalls and 11 surface stalls
Construction Type | Residential Wood Construction
Design Schedule | May 2021 - Feb 2024
Construction Schedule | Apr 2024 - Jul 2025
About the Design
Sizing the Lot Before It Was Bought
We were involved before the land was purchased, which on this site mattered a lot. In Millcreek's C-2 zone, a site of an acre or more counts as a commercially significant development. That would have meant more commercial space and site amenities without adding a single home.
Part of the site came from a seller who also owned the lot next door and was keeping it. The first survey of what we were buying came in at 1.02 acres. 900 East was going to be widened, and the strip going to the city would have put the site under an acre, so we asked the city which number counts. The answer was the area before the road dedication. So before closing, we worked with the surveyor, the owner and the seller to move the line between the parcel being sold and the lot the seller kept. The seller simply kept a little more land than first planned. A later survey showed the deeds didn't quite match that line, so it was adjusted again to match the plan. The site ended up at 0.99 acres.
A Third Bedroom, Drawn as an Office
The owner wanted three-bedroom homes. Millcreek's parking rules ask more of a three-bedroom unit than a two-bedroom one, and on this site the extra stalls weren't there. So each townhome has two bedrooms and an office, and for most people the office does the job of a third bedroom. Working out details like this is a big part of what we do in entitlements: finding a design that meets the code and still gets the owner what they set out to build.
Live-Work on 900 East
The live-work units were our answer to the city's mixed-use requirement. The C-2 zone allows housing only as part of a mixed-use project. On this site, the owner didn't think a stand-alone commercial building would have done well, and it would have made the financing harder. Putting the commercial space inside the four homes facing 900 East solved both problems, and it gave the city the urban street edge it wanted. To be honest, they have turned out to be our favorite part of the project. Each of the four front homes has an office or small shop at sidewalk level, with an accessible restroom and its own entry, and the living space sits on the two floors above. The garage is in the back. Each of the four is meant for one owner who lives upstairs and works downstairs (an old shop-house idea that still works).
They give the street a real front: a storefront-like ground floor on a dark brick base, instead of garage doors. Getting them approved meant a 10-foot setback and a taller ground floor. That cost the live-work units their third bedroom, and they are two-bedroom homes.
Flat Roofs and Roof Decks
Early in 2022 we showed the owners three exterior options, and they picked the flat-roofed modern one. The contractor told us the flat roof would cost about the same as a pitched one. It saves on lumber and trusses and spends that money on roofing and insulation. The roof decks are their own feature, on the front building only. Each of the four live-work homes on 900 East has a great big roof deck you can walk out onto, with views of the mountains, and we think they are the best spots in the project.
Above the brick base, the buildings are broken up with bands of white siding, warm wood-tone panels and dark metal trim. That keeps a three-story row of homes from reading as one long wall.
Working with the City
One Step After Another
The hardest part of Quincy wasn't the design. It was getting through entitlements in Millcreek. The process wasn't clear from the start, and after almost every step there was another step we hadn't known we needed.
We started with a design review meeting in April 2022 and filed the conditional use and subdivision applications that July. Then came a traffic study, and a Planning Commission hearing that was continued over parking before the project was approved in August 2023. After that came the final conditional use approval and the subdivision plat, and building permits were issued in April 2024. Through all of it, our job was to keep the owner moving and to have the next submittal ready when the city asked for it. There is more on how we handle zoning and city approvals on our Services page.
When the Project Changed Hands
In the fall of 2022 a buyer lined up to purchase the project brought in a different architect. We were paid for our work, and we made sure the handoff was clean. A few months later that sale fell through and the project came back to us.
When it came back, the quickest path for the owner was to build on the work already done, not to go back to our own scheme. We picked up the site plan the other team had drawn, kept the same civil engineer and their landscape architect, and within a couple of weeks had new building elevations and renderings. Fitting our homes to that layout took some reworking of the unit plans, and all 20 homes stayed. Projects change over time, and we would rather adapt to what is already moving than make an owner start over.
A Collaborative Effort
Strength PC stayed with Quincy from the first concept through a sale that didn't happen and a long approval process. Wilding Engineering did the surveys and civil work, PKJ Design Group drew the landscape that was approved and built, and J-Corp Development built the homes.
Thanks to everyone who worked on Quincy Townhomes. Their names and links are below.
Stakeholders
Owner | Strength PC
Design Team
Civil | Wilding Engineering
Structural | York Engineering
MEP | Red Brick Engineering
Landscape | PKJ Design Group
Construction Team
General Construction | J-Corp Development
Architecture Project Management
Architecture Team
Principal in Charge & Architect of Record | Jarod Hall
Project Manager | Stephanie Davis
Support Staff | Ethan Barley, Marin Smith, Tyler Froelich, Rebecca Ruby, Mike Smith, Yanely Perez, Jeremy Larsen, Kayla Sharp
Project Scope
Building Design (SD, DD, CDs) | A full scope of building design, from the first schematic concept through the full set of construction documents. This phase also included working through Millcreek's design review, conditional use and subdivision approvals.
Construction Administration (CA) | Support through construction: answering the contractor's questions, issuing clarifications, reviewing submittals and walking the finished homes for punch lists.
Looking Ahead
When the city's process isn't clear, it helps to have an architect who sizes the lot before it's bought, keeps the owner moving through each step the city adds, and designs around the parking and site rules so the owner still gets the homes they set out to build. Strength PC also worked with us on Sunset Place, a set of townhomes on Capitol Hill in Salt Lake City.
If you have a site and a city process that feels like a moving target, we would be glad to talk it through. There is more of our work on the townhome page.