The South Shore Bay near Alameda won awards as the UCC replaced mud flats with shopping centers and neighborhoods. Extensive land development in Southern California became a major form of diversification during the 1950s and 1960s. The company purchased "the 900-acre Bay Farm Island, off the shores of Alameda Island, in the San Francisco Bay," Littlefield explained. "At one time, this land had a dike around it and had been used basically for agricultural purposes. The dike broke sometime before World War II, and the land was under water." The company won an award for transforming odiferous mud flats into manicured neighborhoods, shopping centers, and recreation areas. Construction projects were not always as profitable as they were impressive. The dredges used for land development "ate their heads off in the barn" in between projects, Littlefield noted. He observed that, by 1969, dam building had not turned a profit in more than a decade even though "we thought we were the greatest dam builders around." When an underground hydroelectric plant in Manapouri, New Zealand, was completed with an unexpected $20 million loss, the directors encouraged selling the construction assets. But Littlefield refused. Construction workers, he maintained, "were the fellows who were always ready to move to test themselves against a job, and the greater its challenges, the greater their eagerness to tackle it. The construction men didn't scare easily, and they were the initial source of Utah's drive and national reputation." Also, Littlefield wished to sell a successful operation. "When we were losing money, as we did for a number of years, the Board of Directors kept urging me to sell off the construction business," he related. "I told them we couldn't sell it when we were losing money. Before we could sell the construction business, we had to turn it around."