Mobile Shelving for City of South Jordan City Hall, Utah

About the City of South Jordan

South Jordan is one of the fastest-growing cities in the Salt Lake Valley, with a population that has climbed from roughly 77,500 in 2020 to an estimated 89,000-plus residents today (U.S. Census Bureau; City of South Jordan 2025-2029 Consolidated Plan). South Jordan City Hall, at 1600 W. Towne Center Drive, is the city’s administrative center, housing the departments that manage permits, planning, public works, utilities, finance, and constituent services. As the city has grown, so has the volume of administrative records those departments need to store, organize, and retrieve every day.

The Solution

Material Handling USA designed and installed a mechanical-assist Aurora mobile shelving system at South Jordan City Hall. The system uses multiple high-density carriages mounted on a floor-level twin ramp track, with seven shelf levels per section for substantial vertical storage capacity. Each carriage moves on Aurora’s mechanical-assist gearing and is operated with an ergonomic three-spoke handle, with label holders built into the end panels for organized identification of contents.

The system was configured with open cubby-style shelving sections suited to boxed records, binders, archived files, and operational supplies. Because the twin ramp track installs directly on the existing floor, no raised sub-floor was needed — minimizing disruption to city hall operations during installation. The project was procured through State of Utah Cooperative Contract MA1231 (Shelving, Filing and Storage, Mobile and Stationary), which streamlined the city’s purchasing process.

System Layout & Specifications

The system drawing below is the to-scale layout used for the South Jordan City Hall installation — a 36-foot run of mobile carriages and static end sections at roughly 11 feet of depth, with 42″ × 24″ module bays repeated across the run.

Advantage & Benefits

The primary advantage of mobile shelving for a municipal government is storing growing record volumes inside the existing city hall building without a costly expansion. By compacting shelving rows together instead of running fixed aisles between every row, the system stores roughly the same volume of materials in about half the floor space that static shelving or filing cabinets would require.

For a city government operating on taxpayer funds, that space efficiency has a direct cost benefit: avoiding a building addition or an off-site storage lease keeps public funds directed toward city services, and the State of Utah cooperative contract pricing further reduces the total project cost.

• Records compliance — Utah municipalities manage retention under GRAMA (Utah Code 63G-2) and the schedules the Utah Division of Archives and Records Service maintains for local government. Organized, high-density storage helps staff keep required records accessible without dedicating excess floor space to archives.
• Departmental organization — Label holders and adjustable shelving let records be grouped by department, fiscal year, or document type, so staff across permits, planning, finance, and utilities can find files without digging through a shared room.
• Room to grow — Additional carriages can be added to the existing rail run as record volumes grow, so the system scales with the city rather than requiring a new storage room in a few years.
• Access control — With aisles closed, the compacted carriages form an enclosed storage bank. Optional locks can restrict specific carriages or the whole system for sensitive files.

Installation & Project Process

Material Handling USA managed the South Jordan City Hall project from design through completed installation, with delivery and installation completed in approximately four to six weeks from order.

Frequently Asked Questions