By STEPHAN OGILVIE
The Provo Towne Center is having it’s grand opening, all thanks to John Price. The new mall is his brainchild.
JP Reality is the driving force behind the development of the new mall. Price is the CEO for JP Reality.
Price said he has always tried to, “Work harder than the next guy and be honest in your dealings with people.”
His work ethic has made him one of the most successful contractor/developers in the West.
The ground breaking for Provo Towne Center was June 5, 1997. It is the seventeenth regional mall JP Reality has developed. The reality company has also been key in 26 community centers and six business centers.
Price said he specializes in finding neglected markets and making them the center of the community. Those markets often become the nucleus of the whole vicinity.
Price had the same vision for the valley where his heart is. He immigrated to the United States at the age of eight. At the age of 18 he came to Salt Lake and fell in love with the mountains surrounding the valley. In 1956 he received a degree from the University if Utah in geological engineering.
In 1957 Price started a business from nothing. He contracted building in Salt Lake.
Early in his business career, Price met with a realtor who talked him into an investment. He put in $60,000 which he had no way of covering at the time.
When Price was in debt he began to work harder. He hired a carpenter and went from door to door doing minor remodeling on a contract basis. In six months he paid the bill for the investment.
Ever since his humble beginnings, Price has felt a kinship to Utah. The Provo Towne Center is his way of advancing the state he accredits to his beginnings as a businessman.
Even with all his success, Price remembers when times were tough, “I’ve always thought ‘poor.’ When you think you’re rich and don’t rat hole some money away, you rarely end up with anything. Money is easy to make, hanging on to it is tough.”
