Vineyard doubles in size; Uinta Basin towns surging, Census shows

Several years of rapid development pushed Vineyard in Utah County to the top of Utah's list of fastest-growing cities and towns for 2013.

The community, tucked between Orem and Utah Lake, went from 139 residents in 2010 to 465 three years later, for a 234 percent jump. It doubled its population in 2013 alone, Vineyard Town Planner Nathan Crane said.

This surge since the decade began — driven by large residential projects at The Shores and Sleepy Ridge — hasn't quashed Vineyard's rural charm just yet, but it did give it the only triple-digit municipal growth rate in Utah.

"When you start with a small population," Crane noted, "it's easy to increase that much."

Vineyard's numbers will only climb higher with the ongoing, 1,700-acre mixed-use development underway at the old Geneva Steel mill site, known as @geneva. The master-planned community will include a transit hub, a town center, lakefront properties and more than 10 million square feet of industrial, office space and retail construction.

"There's a lot more to come,'' Crane said.

Vineyard led North Logan, Naples, Herriman, Saratoga Springs, Roosevelt and South Jordan among the only Utah cities or towns to post year-over-year gains in 2013 of more than 6 percent, according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, released late Wednesday.

Three eastern Utah municipalities (Naples, Roosevelt and Altamont) from the energy-booming Uinta Basin made the state's top 10 fastest-growing cities and towns.

Overall, Utah's population grew to 2.9 million people as of 2013, for a 5 percent increase since 2010, Census figures show. Twenty-three of Utah's 29 counties gained population since 2010 and only six counties — Wayne, Garfield, Carbon, Emery, Beaver and Piute — went down in residents.

Salt Lake County's population rose by 1.47 percent in 2013 from the previous year, taking it to 1,079,721 residents. Utah County is now up to 551,891 residents, 2.22 percent over 2012.

Salt Lake City increased by 0.91 percent, up to 191,180.

Utah's second-largest city, West Valley City, rose by 0.93 percent to 133,579, while Provo grew by 0.73 percent to 116,288 and West Jordan by 1.6 percent to 110,077.

Nationally, regions in the South and West dominated the list of fastest-growing municipalities, percentage-wise, between 2012 and 2013, with all of the top 15. Seven of those were in Texas.

Thirteen of the 15 cities that added the most people overall between 2012 and 2013 were in the South or West, except for New York, which ranked highest in actual population growth.

The Big Apple, the largest U.S. city, added 61,440 people in the year ending July 1, 2013.

tsemerad@sltrib.com Twitter: @Tony_Semerad —

Utah's Fastest-Growing Communities, 2012-2013

Population, 2012 Population, 2013 % change

Vineyard 232 465 100.43%

North Logan 8,780 9,659 10.01%

Naples 1,868 2,032 8.78%

Herriman 24,429 26,362 7.91%

Saratoga Springs 21,147 22,749 7.58%

Roosevelt 6,353 6,750 6.25%

South Jordan 55,960 59,366 6.09%

Altamont 234 248 5.98%

Elk Ridge 2,690 2,850 5.95%

Fruit Heights 5,299 5,595 5.59%

Lehi 51,540 54,382 5.51%

Woods Cross 10,212 10,756 5.33%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau