Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5 - Page 318

Utahn · #**6341** Posted **Dec 3, 2019, 3:47 PM**

I know that this isn't actually part of Salt Lake City proper, but I'll comment again because we're here already. From what I understand, the Columbus Library will remain open. However, the Calvin E. Smith Library a few blocks away on 900 East is scheduled to close.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jedikermit

I was wondering that too...half of that building is used as a community center (I'm not sure if it's for South Salt Lake or Salt Lake County). I hope that continues to be used, and they can expand their services there if necessary.

scottharding · #**6342** Posted **Dec 3, 2019, 5:33 PM**

Next phase of Hardware Village, from Building Salt Lake:

https://www.buildingsaltlake.com/new...YKipqoL-dIwFkk

delts145 · #**6343** Posted **Dec 3, 2019, 6:13 PM**

^^^

Very nice!! I'm really liking the look of this one. More of these please. That totally looks like it could have been one of those great turn of the century westside downtown buildings that we lost to demolition many decades ago. We seriously need more infill along this line of design around Downtown or North Temple/Fairgrounds area. This gives the city some added soul.

https://i0.wp.com/www.buildingsaltla...78%2C381&ssl=1

Orlando · #**6344** Posted **Dec 3, 2019, 8:17 PM**

Has anybody heard anything new about this proposed development?

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/03/...e-utahs-greek/

bob rulz · #**6345** Posted **Dec 3, 2019, 11:47 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by delts145

^^^

Very nice!! I'm really liking the look of this one. More of these please. That totally looks like it could have been one of those great turn of the century westside downtown buildings that we lost to demolition many decades ago. We seriously need more infill along this line of design around Downtown or North Temple/Fairgrounds area. This gives the city some added soul.

https://i0.wp.com/www.buildingsaltla...78%2C381&ssl=1

I just wish there was more mixed-use in the Hardware Village development. It has the density and the urban feel, but you still have the leave the development to do anything.

Orlando · #**6346** Posted **Dec 4, 2019, 1:26 AM**

You are so right. This is one of the biggest problems with recent Salt Lake developments. The city needs to enforce ground level retail with these developers.

Pencil · #**6347** Posted **Dec 4, 2019, 5:29 AM**

"Salt Lake City approves deal to give Utah Theater to developers, in exchange for affordable housing"
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/12/...ty-gives-utah/

Orlando · #**6348** Posted **Dec 4, 2019, 8:06 PM**

I wish I could read these SLTrib articles. Every time I open up an article it asks for a subscription. Deseret News doesn't.

Atlas · #**6349** Posted **Dec 4, 2019, 8:26 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orlando

I wish I could read these SLTrib articles. Every time I open up an article it asks for a subscription. Deseret News doesn't.

Open it in an incognito tab or private window and you will be able to read it.

Hatman · #**6350** Posted **Dec 6, 2019, 4:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pencil

"Salt Lake City approves deal to give Utah Theater to developers, in exchange for affordable housing"
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/12/...ty-gives-utah/

This whole thing seems designed to make me perfectly angry. There is so much wrong I need to resort to a numbered list.

1) The wanton destruction of a historic building. This has been beat to death already but TL;DR - the theater is far enough back that there is space to build a highrise and preserve the theater. The two are not exclusive. The theater does not need to be restored now, so nothing needs to be done to it now. Let it sit. In time, support and funding will rise. It is a foolish and shortsighted mistake to smash things now that could be invaluable later.

2) The handouts to developers. They are just giving this site to the developers for literally ZERO dollars, even after the city paid $5.5 million for the building. I don't know how anyone can justify giving such an expensive city asset to a private developer.

3) "Affordable Housing." I am aware that my opinion is unconventional, but here it goes. I think the whole notion of 'affordable housing' is as short-sighted and dumb as demolishing a future public asset in favor of an empty backlot 'park' and a private tower. Paying for someone's housing isn't nearly as helpful as other solutions; sure the rent is cheaper, but the groceries, the goods and services, the parking/transportation, the taxes, and every other cost of living downtown is still just as expensive as before. If you really want people to have better access to jobs and school, then MAKE PUBLIC TRANSIT FREE! Seriously, we "spent" literally $5.5 MILLION to get 30 'lower cost' apartments. How many people will that help? At 4 people per apartment, that means 120 people pay slightly less money for rent.
Great, that's just Great.
120 people can fit into 1 BRT bus. ONE BUS. Meanwhile, places like Kansas City just voted to spend $8 million per year so that public transit is FREE TO EVERYONE in the city. That's over 400,000 people who now have no cost barrier to getting between a place they can afford and the work, schools, commercial centers, libraries, public offices, and everything else in the city.
My stance: Affordable housing is a waste of public money that benefits only a very few individuals who would be better helped by that same investment being made in GOOD and FREE public transit. Affordable Housing is a political handout meant to earn popularity and votes for politicians; it is not a serious solution to any problem. It is treating the symptoms, not the cause.

And the fact that the theater that could become a downtown destination is being demolished for something as wasteful and ineffective as a mere 30 reduced priced apartments... this makes me furious.

I am reminded of another very short-sighted decision that was made just before the 2002 Olympics. The city had been looking at buying the Union Pacific Depot for some time to use as a transit hub. Everyone knew that commuter rail would be coming back one day, and the Union Pacific depot is the best place for a transportation hub. Look at Denver's Union Station, and compare that the the miserable excuse we have for an intermodal hub.
What happened instead? The sale of the depot site to a mall developer was approved, and instead of a transportation hub we have the Gateway. This thing is not necessarily bad, but we all know how it has struggled financially and otherwise. What is worse is that it could have been built anywhere. Even if they wanted to build it around the train station, they did not need to rip up the tracks. Imagine how cool it would be to have commuter trains stopping at a station surrounded by that much commercial development!
But our city is so short-sighted that our future intermodal hub was killed less than 10 years before FrontRunner opened in 2008.

A similar thing is going to happen to the Utah Theater. Just as downtown is revitalizing, short-sighted development is going to demolish a long-term asset in favor of short-term private profit. The city is going to tout what a good thing this is to low-income people (even though only a very few will actually benefit, and they know it!), and people on this thread will sing its praises as a wonderful, new, modern development that will really make Salt Lake City stand out...
But in the end, it will just be another tower among many, and downtown will have lost one more thing that could have made it awesome. In the long term it will be obvious how bad a decision it was, but that has never stopped short-sighted people with wrecking balls from getting rich.

FullCircle · #**6351** Posted **Dec 6, 2019, 5:27 PM**

^^^
I agree with numbers 2 and 3 and appreciate that people are actually starting to look at the bigger picture of why housing is expensive instead of just throwing public money at brand new luxury apartments to make them more affordable. Better/lower cost public transit would definitely help, and zoning changes are another thing that need to be looked at to lower housing costs.

nushiof · #**6352** Posted **Dec 6, 2019, 6:31 PM**

Having Front Runner come through Union Pacific would have been so cool. That was a big miss for downtown.

Another big miss in my opinion was allowing Sandy to steal the RSL stadium and build it in the suburbs. Having Rio Tinto by Grand America or some other block in the downtown area, would have been great for downtown. I can't remember the details but I think Sandy offered some tax incentives that SLC wouldn't match.

FullCircle · #**6353** Posted **Dec 6, 2019, 8:33 PM**

It wasn't that SLC wouldn't match the offer, it was that the State legislature passed a law that made it so a city couldn't use RDA funds to fund entertainment venues, which was how SLC was proposing to fund the stadium. That left SLC in a lurch and couldn't come up with a competitive offer. Sandy said they had a funding mechanism that didn't use RDA funds, but was cagey and vague about it. Once Sandy was awarded the stadium the Legislature changed the law, and Sandy used RDA funds for the stadium. It was some of the dirtiest politics I've seen, or at least, that I followed closely. I vowed to never forget that and to boycott RSL and Sandy since then. I think I've eaten a meal or two at a Sandy restaurant since then, but overall I try not to give any of those crooks money. Probably silly and vengeful, but eff them.

delts145 · #**6354** Posted **Dec 6, 2019, 10:16 PM**

Well said Hatman. My sentiments exactly!!

bob rulz · #**6355** Posted **Dec 6, 2019, 10:26 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatman

This whole thing seems designed to make me perfectly angry. There is so much wrong I need to resort to a numbered list.

1) The wanton destruction of a historic building. This has been beat to death already but TL;DR - the theater is far enough back that there is space to build a highrise and preserve the theater. The two are not exclusive. The theater does not need to be restored now, so nothing needs to be done to it now. Let it sit. In time, support and funding will rise. It is a foolish and shortsighted mistake to smash things now that could be invaluable later.

2) The handouts to developers. They are just giving this site to the developers for literally ZERO dollars, even after the city paid $5.5 million for the building. I don't know how anyone can justify giving such an expensive city asset to a private developer.

3) "Affordable Housing." I am aware that my opinion is unconventional, but here it goes. I think the whole notion of 'affordable housing' is as short-sighted and dumb as demolishing a future public asset in favor of an empty backlot 'park' and a private tower. Paying for someone's housing isn't nearly as helpful as other solutions; sure the rent is cheaper, but the groceries, the goods and services, the parking/transportation, the taxes, and every other cost of living downtown is still just as expensive as before. If you really want people to have better access to jobs and school, then MAKE PUBLIC TRANSIT FREE! Seriously, we "spent" literally $5.5 MILLION to get 30 'lower cost' apartments. How many people will that help? At 4 people per apartment, that means 120 people pay slightly less money for rent.
Great, that's just Great.
120 people can fit into 1 BRT bus. ONE BUS. Meanwhile, places like Kansas City just voted to spend $8 million per year so that public transit is FREE TO EVERYONE in the city. That's over 400,000 people who now have no cost barrier to getting between a place they can afford and the work, schools, commercial centers, libraries, public offices, and everything else in the city.
My stance: Affordable housing is a waste of public money that benefits only a very few individuals who would be better helped by that same investment being made in GOOD and FREE public transit. Affordable Housing is a political handout meant to earn popularity and votes for politicians; it is not a serious solution to any problem. It is treating the symptoms, not the cause.

And the fact that the theater that could become a downtown destination is being demolished for something as wasteful and ineffective as a mere 30 reduced priced apartments... this makes me furious.

I am reminded of another very short-sighted decision that was made just before the 2002 Olympics. The city had been looking at buying the Union Pacific Depot for some time to use as a transit hub. Everyone knew that commuter rail would be coming back one day, and the Union Pacific depot is the best place for a transportation hub. Look at Denver's Union Station, and compare that the the miserable excuse we have for an intermodal hub.
What happened instead? The sale of the depot site to a mall developer was approved, and instead of a transportation hub we have the Gateway. This thing is not necessarily bad, but we all know how it has struggled financially and otherwise. What is worse is that it could have been built anywhere. Even if they wanted to build it around the train station, they did not need to rip up the tracks. Imagine how cool it would be to have commuter trains stopping at a station surrounded by that much commercial development!
But our city is so short-sighted that our future intermodal hub was killed less than 10 years before FrontRunner opened in 2008.

A similar thing is going to happen to the Utah Theater. Just as downtown is revitalizing, short-sighted development is going to demolish a long-term asset in favor of short-term private profit. The city is going to tout what a good thing this is to low-income people (even though only a very few will actually benefit, and they know it!), and people on this thread will sing its praises as a wonderful, new, modern development that will really make Salt Lake City stand out...
But in the end, it will just be another tower among many, and downtown will have lost one more thing that could have made it awesome. In the long term it will be obvious how bad a decision it was, but that has never stopped short-sighted people with wrecking balls from getting rich.

Do you really think free transit would matter to these same poor people if rent were $1,500+/month for a one-bedroom? They still wouldn't be able to afford it.

I agree that we should make public transit free...but this isn't an either/or proposition. It's better that we help some people with housing than nobody. The problem is much bigger than just Salt Lake City. In order for the affordability housing crisis to truly be "solved" it would require efforts from the local, county, state and federal governments alike. Not just free transit, but free healthcare, free or significantly cheaper higher education, wholesale changes to how low-income housing credits are distributed and how you qualify for them, how to incentivize developers to build cheaper housing, etc. I think getting mad at affordable housing credits in lieu of free transit is missing the forest for the trees.

This country criminalizes being poor, and the root causes of housing unaffordability runs much deeper than what Salt Lake City alone can grapple. It's a national issue.

I don't want to spark a big political debate about free healthcare, etc, I just find your outrage misplaced, or at least too narrowly focused. 20 affordable housing units is not much and will ultimately not accomplish much, but it will still help people. Housing is (or at least should be) a human right and the MOST important thing to help people get on track with their lives is to have stable housing.

FullCircle · #**6356** Posted **Dec 6, 2019, 11:17 PM**

^^^ You don't want to start a political debate, but then you made extremely strong political statements? Interesting.

I'm not speaking for Hatman, but free transit would allow people to live in the cheaper suburbs and still make it to downtown for work without the high cost of commuting in their own vehicle (plus all the other benefits of fewer cars on the road, less polution, etc.). I think that was what he was referring to (sorry if I'm wrong, Hatman, but I'll go ahead and make the statement for myself either way).

Second, the affordable housing subsidy issue is also about "bang for the buck" as it were. Subsidizing a luxury highrise is a horrible return on investment if the goal is helping low income individuals not end up homeless. The way you speak suggests to me that you're not actually paying taxes (I seem to recall you recently saying something that suggested you are rather young, so that's understandable) and therefore don't have any skin in the game for how taxes are spent. Helping people is a good thing, but there are always costs associated with that (when it's a government doing the helping), so it's entirely reasonable, and yes, even compassionate in the big picture, to ask how to best do that without unduly burdening the greater populace. Thomas Sowell (extremely intelligent economist) suggests asking three questions when looking to implement government programs: 1. Based on what data? 2. Compared to what? 3. At what cost? In my opinion, subsidizing new construction, luxury highrises falls down on all three of these questions, but especially the third.

bob rulz · #**6357** Posted **Dec 7, 2019, 10:19 AM**

I don't disagree that this isn't necessarily the right way to go about it. While I personally am not that invested in saving the Utah Theater, I think the way the city has handled this sale is questionable at best (just another wonderful and smooth handling of an important issue by Biskupski). I also agree that affordable housing is often used to score political favor, which is what many of these subsidized projects end up being.

What I'm saying is that the underlying issues that cause a lack of affordable housing go far beyond any specific, granular local issues. There are things that local governments can do to help, but they cannot solve the problem on their own.

I am 100% in favor of free transit. I think it would be a fantastic development, and would not only help many people, but encourage people to drive less and hopefully help our air quality. However, free transit will not suddenly make downtown Salt Lake City affordable. I'm not sure Hatman was talking about the suburbs since that seems rather secondary to the issue of subsidizing affordable housing in downtown SLC. The goal is to make it so that people CAN afford to live downtown, and not HAVE to commute from the suburbs. The people who are actually going to qualify for this housing will just be grateful to have a decent place to live. I'm sure free transit would be helpful to those people as well, but it's not as if that's the difference between them getting a home or not.

I am not saying that the government should subsidize all affordable housing until everybody has a home. I am saying that many people are in the positions they are because of broad, systemic issues that include the high costs of healthcare and education, because this country makes things unnecessarily difficult for poor people, because our taxes are used in often confusing or counterproductive ways. It's more of a philosophical issue than an explicitly political one. One in which free transit is also included.

I'll mention this part specifically about Hatman's post as that is what I take most issue with:

Quote:

Paying for someone's housing isn't nearly as helpful as other solutions; sure the rent is cheaper, but the groceries, the goods and services, the parking/transportation, the taxes, and every other cost of living downtown is still just as expensive as before. If you really want people to have better access to jobs and school, then MAKE PUBLIC TRANSIT FREE! Seriously, we "spent" literally $5.5 MILLION to get 30 'lower cost' apartments. How many people will that help? At 4 people per apartment, that means 120 people pay slightly less money for rent.

I take issue with the first sentence, because housing is NECESSARY for the other parts of a person's life to fall into place. Also, housing is - for MOST people - the most expensive part of a person's life. Beyond that, because housing affordability is such a major issue that goes much beyond cities, I think it's acceptable to at least some extent for them to help their residents with housing, as it's likely the most direct thing that they can do to help with that. Cities only have so much power over, say, healthcare or education costs. They have a little bit more power over transportation costs, but only within their boundaries. They do, however, have a lot of power over housing policy. So is this specific example an ideal example of how to provide housing? No. But I think cities absolutely should be involved in (not necessarily pay 100% of the cost of) providing housing for its people. I can't say I know the most ideal way of doing this, but I feel that it's part of a city's responsibility. I don't have an issue with free transit, or with criticizing how real estate transactions between cities and private developers happen, but with saying that cities don't have a responsibility in providing affordable housing.