A Look at... Salt Lake City

[dsjeffries]

Hoping this doesn't turn into a repeat of my Kansas City thread, here's a look at something extremely progressive (and quite enviable, to be honest) that Salt Lake City is accomplishing.  Partnered with the LDS Church, they (read: private developers) have embarked on a $1 billion truly mixed-use, sustainable, walkable, urban development in their downtown.

It is called City Creek Center, and includes Nordstrom and Macy's as major tenants.  It will also feature several offices, residences (including condominiums), retail shops, restaurants, and a grocery store nearby.

The development is replacing two former, failing shopping malls.  As Salt Lake City's suburbs began to grow, they, like Tulsa's suburbs, started siphoning away the retail tax dollars.  When Nordstrom threatened to leave to one of Salt Lake City's suburbs, the church stepped in, bought the property and began planning this pedestrian-oriented development.

At least one residential tower has been announced to be in the 30-35 floor range at 415 feet tall. A total of 300 units will be built at City Creek Center.  There will be below-grade parking under much of the development, and it will make use of SLC's light-rail system (TRAX).

CCC will also include a newly-formed World Trade Center Utah, which will consolidate government and nonprofit economic development agencies and private sector international service providers.

Much of the activity will be focused around tree-lined, pedestrian pathways which cut the city blocks in half.  It looks similar to the Power & Light District development in Kansas City.  According to their website, "Some retail areas will be open-air while others will have a retractable roof."

Total retail and restaurant square footage: 774,000.

The whole project is expected to be completed by 2011.
Here are some images and maps:



Some excavation work:




Condominum tower:




A few negatives about the project:

Since it is funded by the Church, it will be closed on Sundays.  I'll never understand why some retailers/restaurants choose to close on one of the most potentially best sales days.  People are generally off work during the weekend, and that's when they have the most time to shop or go out as a family.

Plans include a pedestrian bridge, something we all know to be an enemy of good urban design.

As far as I can tell, there aren't any real entertainment options included.  There is no movie theatre, bowling alley, music venue (or any performance venue), etc.


I think it's interesting that such a conservative church has taken such a progressive attitude in developing downtown.  It definitely will bring people downtown, especially those looking for a place to live.  However, it appears that they've chosen to take certain moral stances and impose them upon the development.  Alcohol will be able to be served, but this whole closing on Sunday thing just makes no sense.  Perhaps in the 1950s it was acceptable, but in these days, it doesn't make business sense to be closed on Sundays.  This is where the line between the Church and its private development partners has blurred and it appears that their ideals are getting in the way of making this a truly remarkable project.  People like to shop and eat out on the weekends, and subsequently will avoid those places that are closed and head for those open places.  Where is that in this instance?  In SLC's suburbs.  So, I guess the question is: will this project prove to be counter-productive in the end?  I guess we'll see after 2011.




Here are a couple other projects, all located downtown:

The Metro Condominiums

Once completed, The Metro Condos will be a 117-unit residential development offering studio, one, two and three bedroom condominium residences as well as four unique "Live/Work" units. It is located in the Central Business District in the heart of the City, at 350 South 200 East, about a half block from the TRAX stop at the City Library and will offer easy access to shopping, the University of Utah and many entertainment venues.

222 South Main

The Wasatch group of companies and Hamilton Partners have teamed to bring the newest high-rise office tower to the Central Business District. Coming in early 2009, 222 South Main features design/architecture by the world-renowned group at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and is comprised of over 430,000 square feet of office space on 21 floors.

Marmalade

Marmalade is a $47 million mixed use development featuring 50,000 sq. feet of commercial space and 91 condominiums, town homes and penthouses near downtown Salt Lake City at 500 North and 300 West. Marmalade Hill is Utah's oldest neighborhood. The residential portion of the project features natural stone countertops, custom cabinetry, bamboo hardwood floors, floor-to-ceiling windows and wide-open balconies. Marmalade will also be Utah's most environmentally sensitive "green" development.

Junior Achievement City

Junior Achievement City is a 10,000 square-foot learning facility designed to help students understand and appreciate America's free enterprise system. The city has the look and feel of an actual community, including a City Hall, Town Square, banks, media outlets, grocery and furniture stores, a school district, real estate brokerage and other vital components of a city. After four to six weeks of preparation in their classrooms, Utah students come to Junior Achievement City to "act out" their role as a business owner, mayor, or employee. Approximately 12,000 Utah students each year will discover the connection between school and work, the basic components of financial responsibility, the benefits of teamwork, and other life skills.

Gateway Tower / Fidelity Investments Building

The new Fidelity Investments Building will be located at 49 North 400 West by the Rio Grande in an area that is currently vacant. This impressive building will boast 7 floors and 230,000 square feet. Fidelity Investments will be the sole tenant of the building and will begin moving in May 2007.

Gateway Olympic Plaza

The Gateway Olympic Plaza is a $10 million dollar project being carried out by the Boyer Company. The building will be 78,000 square feet spread out over two floors and will be a combination of retail and commercial space.

Gateway Discovery

The Discovery Gateway is nearly 61,000 square feet of exhibit, program and public space dedicated to the support of family fun and exploration. Discovery Gateway offers opportunities to explore the world through science, art, culture, family and community. Projected visitation is 238,000 for the first full year of operation. Science outreach programs will reach an additional 40,000 students in the classroom. Discovery Gateway will open its Doors in September 2006.

Intermodal Hub / Light Rail

The construction of light rail to the Intermodal Hub is moving quickly. Construction begins September 2006 with infrastructure improvements, including sewer improvements and utility relocation along 400 West, beginning in late Fall of 2006 and continuing through January. Expected completion for the project is early 2008. The Light Rail will provide a direct connection to Commuter Rail at the Intermodal Hub. Throughout the construction, pedestrian and vehicular access to business will be guaranteed, along with access to parking. Construction contracts require that access to shopping be maintained during the Holiday shopping season.

The Leonardo

Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's visionary approach to exploring the world, The Leonardo is a one-of-a-kind art, culture and science center currently under development in the heart of Utah's capital city. Three founding partner organizations, Global Artways, Salt Lake City's arts education program; the Center for Documentary Arts; and the brand new Utah Science Center, have come together to create this new destination for exploration and learning that will be located in the old main library on Library Square. The Leonardo is being funded by private and public funds, including a $10 million general obligation bond approved by Salt Lake City voters in 2003.

Salt Palace Expansion

The expansion represents a 40 percent increase in the size of the facility, including a total of 515,000 square feet of exhibit space, 164,000 square feet of meeting space, and 66 meeting rooms. The expansion costs $58 million and the grand opening will occur fall 2006. Tradeshow Week magazine claims the Salt Palace expansion's aggressive building schedule is "poised to rewrite the rule book on convention center construction." According to an independent study commissioned by several civic organizations in 2003, initial estimates for economic growth anticipated the expanded Salt Palace will allow Salt Lake to retain an annual $32 million in existing Outdoor Retailer spending, while generating an overall $40 million in new visitor spending annually.

Federal Court House

The Frank E. Moss Courthouse can no longer meet the expanding needs of the US Federal Courts and will be replaced by a new courthouse located on the same site. Initial site studies were completed in 2004 and the design process has begun. The U.S. District Courthouse will house the US District Court, US Probation ad the US MarshalÕs Service. The site will be three acres and encompass the entire block between 300 and 400 South and Main Street and West Temple. It will be 367,188 square feet and include nine district and five magistrate courtrooms with chambers and office support spaces. The project is scheduled to begin construction in 2009 and to be completed in 2011.

[inteller]

"Since it is funded by the Church, it will be closed on Sundays."

sorry, you lost me at that point.  This is why I'll never live in that cultist state.  Who needs the Taliban when you have Mormons.

[we vs us]

Great thread, DScott.  I'm a big fan of seeing in aggregate how waves of development will shape a city, and you summarized it really well.  And to its credit, SLC looks like it's pushing its downtown really well.  

Looking at those pics, it's becoming really obvious how big a role compelling architecture is playing in the revitalization of downtowns across the country. Not only in form, but in concept, too.  Also the commitment to "things to do for families," which at least a couple of those places are dedicated to.

[Wingnut]

So is the mormon church a church or really a business?
I wouldn't want my forced tithing settlement going to pay for private development.
Is the church using church funds for this?

Hold the caffeine, please.

quote: but this whole closing on Sunday thing just makes no sense. Perhaps in the 1950s it was acceptable, but in these days, it doesn't make business sense to be closed on Sundays.  

It may not make business sense, but Chick-fil-a (a dedicated Christian owned corp) is closed on Sundays and is very successful. Have you had that spicy wrap?? Yum!

[cannon_fodder]

Please don't turn this into a "Mormon Church" (they prefer LDS) discussion thread, as far as it relates to this development - fine. But not in general. I'm happy to debate the merits and pitfalls of any religion, but lets do so in Politics as it is surely will go downhill.
- - -

The development looks really amazing. On the scale of development in the late 90's downtown Memphis, or the Plaza area of KC, or just about anywhere else.  It goes together, but is not a single entity.  Mixed use.  

I'm a huge fan.

I've never been any where in SLC except the airport, but most people that are there are impressed with it.  It pains me every time I hear how new SLC is, Portland, Albuquerque, or how much progress OKC has made.

[inteller]

SLC downtown works because THE church is downtown.

Imagine taking a complex the size of Asbury, plopping it in downtown Tulsa and using dogma to have everyone go downtown to THE church.  

Yes, Tulsa would have a super awesome downtown that is closed on sundays too.

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by inteller

SLC downtown works because THE church is downtown.

Imagine taking a complex the size of Asbury, plopping it in downtown Tulsa and using dogma to have everyone go downtown to THE church.  

Yes, Tulsa would have a super awesome downtown that is closed on sundays too.

Yeah.  Which is totally worse than what it is now, which is a less-than-awesome downtown that's closed on Sundays, Saturdays, and after 6pm on weekdays.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by we vs us

quote:Originally posted by inteller

SLC downtown works because THE church is downtown.

Imagine taking a complex the size of Asbury, plopping it in downtown Tulsa and using dogma to have everyone go downtown to THE church.  

Yes, Tulsa would have a super awesome downtown that is closed on sundays too.

Yeah.  Which is totally worse than what it is now, which is a less-than-awesome downtown that's closed on Sundays, Saturdays, and after 6pm on weekdays.

well, I'll tell the LDS that Tulsa is interested.  They can buy and set up shop in the Tulsa Club (appropriate name) and they can start their urban renewwal.  We can move Warren jeffs to the jail downtown and stick all of his wives in the widows colony off Elgin.

The Blue Dome district is going to look pretty bleak though....and not sure the Gypsy Coffeehouse will stay in business.

[dsjeffries]

quote:Originally posted by Wingnut

So is the mormon church a church or really a business?
I wouldn't want my forced tithing settlement going to pay for private development.
Is the church using church funds for this?

I should've included that in the post.  No church funds or tithings are being used.  It's the private development arm of the church in cooperation with some outside, private investors.  Also, part of the funds will be recouped by the sales of the residential units.

The church is downtown, so it was able to see how vital it is to have a thriving downtown area.  They saw, as many people on here, that as the suburbs began to prosper, the burbs were stripping away the quality of life in the downtown area.  They recognized an opportunity to have a positive impact on downtown, and ran with it.

On a similar note: There are no public funds, zero, being spent on this project.  That has shown to have both positive and negative consequences:  Since it's private, they have the ability to say, "nope, closed on Sunday" or whatever they want, really.  Since it's private, though, no one is up in arms about wasteful governmental spending.  It will pump lots of money and people downtown, which will in turn help SLC...
Lesson?  It's not just 'black and white', private versus public.  There should be a mix, a checks-and-balances act that maximizes the benefits to the area.

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by DScott28604
Since it's private, though, no one is up in arms about wasteful governmental spending.  

LDS practically is the government there so I wouldn't be so sure about that.

its cool though, our local religious nuts supposedly funnel BILLIONS through their outfit.

[cannon_fodder]

Inteller, while it may PRACTICALLY be the government there it is not.  While they have a strong influence over policies in the state (as Baptists do here) they are not the state.  No citizen is required to contribute money to the church and thus no citizen is required to help them fund this project.

If Grace, Victory, and Church on the Move wanted to do a $1bil project downtown Tulsa and close on Sundays... I'd be fine with that.  Do you oppose the entire idea of this development because it is funded by a Investment Trust that is owned by a church, because it's closed on Sundays, or do you not really even care?

[Viperlord]

I was searching for "Downtown Salt Lake" development news or articles, and this thread came up. So, I hope you dont mind me eavesdropping in a bit.

First off, let me introduce myself. I live in the Salt Lake area, and am a urban development nut freak i guess you could say. So, I follow projects really closely here.

sorry to say, but our downtownrising website where you got most of the information is not very up to date.[]

feel free to take a look at my projects list for SLC by clicking on the link below..

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=115696

The World Trade Center proposal is a completely different project, it will not be part of the city creek center project.
you can see a rendering of the proposed 25-30 story tower for the WTC Utah.


Also, the City Creek Center has came a long ways. Original plans called for only 2 new condo towers (20 stories roughly) to be built, and the malls to be redone. They then decided that it would not be enough. So, they started all over, and came up with a mixed use project. They have taken are large 10 acre city blocks and plan to make them more walkable. by placing retail lined walkways through the cores. So basically cutting them from 2 large blocks to 8 smaller blocks. The plans call for the retail portion to be open-air, but have a retractable closing glass roof that can close during poor weather.


There will be a creek running through the center of the retail walkways, and a lot more open space planned into the development. The development will be closed sundays. The church did however decide to allow restarurants in the development to serve alcohol.

There will be over 750 units planned for the first phase. There are plans for more phases. preliminary plans that we have seen/heard of call for a 40 story condominium tower and a 30-35 story office tower.

With this first phase of City Creek Center we will be seeing a ton of new residential buildings..


Building 1
Floors:32
Height:370'


Building 2
Floors:19
Height:255'


Building 4
Floors:7


Building 5
Floors:20
Height:265'


Building 6
Floors:10
Height:145'


Building 7
Floors:10
Height:145'


Residential above retail 1
Floors:8
Height:105'


Residential above retail 2
Floors:8
Height:105'


Plus there will be 3 floors of residential units located above most of the retail in the development where there is not any towers.

What started this whole redevelopment of these two malls was a few things. First off a new mixed use shopping center called the Gateway was built 4 blocks to the west. The old malls started to dry up and shops closed. The church being a huge stakeholder in Downtown Salt Lake decided to invest in the property around their headquarters and renovate the malls. The church is a huge asset to downtown SLC btw. Temple square attracts over 4 million visitors a year. Taubman corporation, one of the partners in the development projects that the city creek center will see over 10 million visitors a year.

So, the Gateway development....




Gateway is a mixed use development with retail, housing and offices as well, and has been a huge success. They have the entertainment built into their development, movie theaters, arcades etc...
The church is not doing an entertainment peice into their development because they are not trying to compete full head on with the gateway.
Gateway appeals to the younger crowd. City Creek is targeting the older more sophisticated crowd i guess you could say. Also, there is our arts and culture district just to the south of the City Creek Center.

Overall, Downtown SLC is very busy right now. We have over 2.5 billion dollars being investing both privately and publicly in the area. Over 4,000 housing units planned or under construction.

Dont you guys have the BOK arena underconstruction over there? The pics of that place look sweet.[8D]


Hope I didn't steal the show...
Anyways, back to Tulsa discussion...

[dsjeffries]

Thanks SO MUCH for the information!

And yes, the BOk Center is well underway--it's scheduled to open in September, and many of us on TulsaNow actually just took a tour of the structure.  It's quite a fantastic building.  You can view photos of the tour on flickr, or can watch the video of our tour on the main page.

I'm taking a look at how downtown development is going on in other cities to see what works, what hasn't, how it's being done, etc., in order to gain a better perspective on things and use those cities as models (hence the Salt Lake City thread).  So far, it's just been Kansas City and SLC, but I'm planning on looking at several more cities.

It's funny that you found this while searching for SLC things, because I found out about City Creek et al by searching for a Tulsa subject [].

[Viperlord]

Yeah, I saw your pics of the BOK center on flickr. I was searching for "downtown salt lake" on flickr and saw your City Creek Center pic, so I followed it back to your other pics. kinda funny.

SLC has been studying a ton of cities as models. Thats where are whole Downtownrising vision came from. Two of the biggest cities that SLC has looked at when it comes to development and planning are Portland and San Diego.

SLC is really pushing for a 24/7 open downtown. With this many housing units are being built in the downtown area. in fact the Church has moved its LDS business college, and an extension of the BYU college to the downtown salt lake area to get more life into the area.

Another thing that is going to help is commuter rail and light rail extensions. There will be two parts of the commuter rail. The north section of 30+ miles is scheduled to open this year. This commuter rail will drop people off at an intermodal hub in DT SLC. At the hub people will have access to other light rail lines, buses, taxis, greyhound bus service,etc.

Right now, we are expanding our light rail lines in the downtown area, plus out to some other parts of the valley. Also light rail to the cities airport is in the plans as well.

There is also a street car (trolley) line that is being planned in the next five years to link a $500 million dollar mixed use project in South Salt Lake to the old sugarhouse district, which is becoming quite a hot spot of activtiy.




The salt lake valley is seeing a ton of mixed use developments taking place along the lightrail lines.

I wish that all this development was happening downtown, but unfortunatly we do get some sprawled developments in the suburbs....

Salt Lake has been losing a lot to the suburbs in the past while. Downtown lost a 20,000 seat soccer stadium, a 13,000 seat hockey arena, and many more office developments to the burbs. This is bad planning in my head. A centralized location for entertainment and sports hubs should be downtown.

Its good to see DT SLC finally start to do something about sprawl though.


IHC hospital campus, Murray


Frank Gehry designed project in Lehi, Utah. Will have Utahs tallest building in it when completed at 450'

[TheArtist]

Its interesting to watch as other cities around our size go through the same development patterns. Omaha is another city you may want to check into DScott.

Each is wanting to create a vibrant downtown and are finding similar ways to make it so.

1. MIXED USE developments are very important.

2. Having a UNIVERSITY downtown is a great asset.

3. Making sure areas are pleasing, walkable and developments PEDESTRIAN FRIENDLY.

4. RESIDENTIAL, Having lots of people living downtown is critical.

5. DESTINATIONS/EVENTS such as sports, entertainment, arts, "church", tourist, conventions,museums, etc. are important.

6. MULTIMODAL TRANSPORTATION. Enabling different forms of transportation from, walking, biking, busses, trolleys, light rail, commuter rail, water transportation. Hiding parking garages within developments.