Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[Atlas]

Originally Posted by i-215

For SEG to succeed they need to:

1. Hire professionals. They won't be cheap. They won't be headquartered in Utah. They might not even be based out of the U.S.

2. Listen to the professionals.

3. Take early drafts to stakeholders (adjacent property owners, the Chamber of Commerce, etc.) directly in closed-door meetings. Let the professionals lead these meetings. They won't be cheap. Let the professionals tweak the designs.

4. Work with the planning commission in a preparatory (but ethically legal "closed door" way) to address concerns. Let the professionals lead these meetings. They won't be cheap, blah, blah, blah...

5. When you have a bulletproof concept that has all the stakeholders and city officials feeling good about it, then release a Twitter post to the public showing it off!

6. Then listen to the reasonable public feedback. Let the professionals conduct these meetings (similar to what Disney did in Anaheim). Adjust the plans to meet community feedback within the bounds of previous constraints from stakeholders.

7. After all this work... then present to the planning commission. It'll pass unanimously or nearly unanimously.

SEG are rookies. Until they bring in pros to help them, I'm worried this project is in real trouble. If they are struggling this much with the PLANNING part of the process, what do they expect the ENGINEERING and PROJECT MANAGEMENT part of the process to be like?

Gensler is their design firm. They've already done #3 and have been praised for it by the City Council and Japantown.

The planning commission voted against it because they a) don't like the city bending over backwards to support a billionaire's entertainment project and b) there's no previously-adopted city master plan that calls for raising building heights, etc. It didn't really have anything to do with the details of what's in these preliminary drawings.

The city council is going to take their 6-0 negative vote and throw it in the trash. SEG will get their upzone. The planning commissioners knew this going into it.

I just wish that someone would talk them out of this shortsighted, unnecessary idea of burying 300W. They should use this opportunity to pressure UDOT into making 300W a liveable street.

[Juancrocco]

Originally Posted by i-215

One more note: Just for fun, I overlayed LA Live on top of the SEG/Convention Center blocks (at scale).



The total development for the entire LA Live project is a half block larger than the two SEG is considering playing with, so the scale seems appropriate. However only the RED area is what a typical person would consider "L.A. Live," and that's about equal to one SLC block.

So Ryan Smith probably could get away with just the block adjacent to the Delta Center if he wanted to (though that doesn't connect it to Main Street).

Consider: The Los Angeles market has 18,422,600 potential sports fans to patronize L.A. Live. Even split in half with the Clippers, that's still north of 9 million.

The Salt Lake City market (entire state of Utah) has 3,381,000 potential fans. One-third (or one-sixth) that of Los Angeles. Can the market support enough foot/fan traffic to support two or three blocks worth of development without severely cannibalizing tenants from other parts of the city? L.A. Live attracted entire new venues like the 7,000-seat Nokia (Peacock) Theater, the west coast headquarters for ESPN, the Grammy Award Museum, and a 54-story Marriott "J.W." hotel. And that's just inside the RED part. Will we attract all of that (plus maybe a second block?)

I mean, I hope so. But I think it's a question we need a potential consulting firm working for SEG to answer.

I'd rather see a scaled-down but successful "Jazztown" entertainment district than a gigantic one that's half empty. Or worse, one that kills the Gateway and wounds Main Street (again).

I've gone from being a 100% critic of this project to (thanks to heavy persuasion from you guys) someone who now wants to see it succeed but feels very concerned for its future. Not from the City Council but from itself.

Something I think gets missed here is access. How many people can quickly and easily access LA Live in the metro in a regular basis? I bet it’s a lot closer to 2.5 Million than you think. Parking, traffic, the nature of a median job all are factors. The Wasatch Front is really easy to get around, and it’s legitimately 45 minutes to get to delta center from anywhere. Even from Heber. I’m in LA all the time and frankly getting anywhere out of your immediate neighborhood is a complete hassle and expensive to either park or Uber.

Everyone loves to make population the sole metric (which we’re a top 25 CSA anyways) but there are a lot of other factors. And there are very, very few people who can’t conveniently get downtown compared to other metros and CSA’s. Going to a Jazz game from Provo is orders of magnitude easier than going to LA Live from Silverlake. That certainly helps.

[i-215]

Originally Posted by Atlas

Gensler is their design firm. They've already done #3 and have been praised for it by the City Council and Japantown.

I'm very happy to hear that. Gensler appear to be a capable firm of taking on this project. From what's publicly available, you wouldn't know they were involved. Hopefully much more detailed designs are being passed around in the stakeholder meetings you say are happening.

Originally Posted by bob rulz

SEG was given like, what, 4 months to come up with a preliminary plan? Hardly anybody expected Utah to get an NHL team this upcoming season. And then the state mandated that the plan get moving within a very short time frame. If you think it's a half-baked plan, I would put most of the blame on the NHL and the Utah legislature.

And perhaps that's the origin of all the trouble.

The legislature rushing through a $1B package on the last day of the session without much discussion with the public to "sell" Utahns on the idea. That puts SEG in a bind. That puts the city in a bind. That will soon put UDOT in a bind.

For comparison, the L.A. Live project took a few years. From what I can tell, the concept started getting kicked around as early as late 1999. The stakeholder meetings took pretty much all of 2000 and half of 2001. And the approval from the city wasn't until mid-to-late 2001.

On our timeline, that would mean the City Council giving final buy-off by 2026. I suppose there's no reason it needs to go that slowly, but I grow suspicious when a developer rushes the planning (even if it's not their fault).

The NHL team can play without an entertainment complex. Even with speedy approval, it took L.A. Live from 2001 to 2005 before the first phases of it opened. So we may be looking at 2028-2029 before there is a functional entertainment district (the first block). Even on an accelerated timetable.

I wish everyone (especially Utah's Capitol Hill) could take a deep breath, slow down a little bit, and get this right. If you're saying they've already met with and got approval from *all* the stakeholders, I'm skeptical. I'm doubtful that everyone would be on-board already, especially at the early stage of draft.

[i-215]

Originally Posted by Juancrocco

Something I think gets missed here is access. How many people can quickly and easily access LA Live in the metro in a regular basis? I bet it’s a lot closer to 2.5 Million than you think. Parking, traffic, the nature of a median job all are factors. The Wasatch Front is really easy to get around, and it’s legitimately 45 minutes to get to delta center from anywhere. Even from Heber. I’m in LA all the time and frankly getting anywhere out of your immediate neighborhood is a complete hassle and expensive to either park or Uber.

Everyone loves to make population the sole metric (which we’re a top 25 CSA anyways) but there are a lot of other factors. And there are very, very few people who can’t conveniently get downtown compared to other metros and CSA’s. Going to a Jazz game from Provo is orders of magnitude easier than going to LA Live from Silverlake. That certainly helps.

Fair point. I'm way out in the Inland Empire, so I'd only go to L.A. Live if I was attending a game or going to the convention center for something. It wouldn't make sense for me to go otherwise.

Having both the NHL and NBA play at Delta Center will help. And if SEG are planning on adding seats to Delta Center, that will help, too.

But people will come from Ventura, and southern Orange County, and the far-flung reaches of the Inland Empire to attend an event or game at Staples/Crypto Arena. You are right that the population "deteriorates" the farther out you go, thanks to traffic. But even deteriorated population is still population. Utah's market doesn't "deteriorate" as badly now, but may start to look a bit more that way as the market grows over the next 20-30 years (but there will be more population, so the deterioration may cancel out).

[Makid]

I do think that there will be more time before too much happens.

The County is working with Visit Salt Lake and other stakeholders regarding the Salt Palace. They need to know the size that is needed for the currently scheduled conventions. They do have conventions scheduled out close to 2030.

If the conventions need more space than the 2 Eastern blocks provide, the County will need to find a way to expand the space prior to removing the western block of the Salt Palace. This may include working with the Ritchie group with regards to the West Quarter Block D. Of course, this all depends on what the needs are for the currently planned conventions.

After this examination, the County will need to come up with funds to either expand the Salt Palace or at a minimum, close off the unneeded spaces to allow for demolition of the western block.

The above is already in progress to some degree and I wouldn't expect it to be completed before the end of the year (sizing and finding possible funds). Any expansion to keep currently scheduled conventions will come before any demolition.

This puts any demolition of any portion of the Salt Palace at between 1 and 3 years away at the earliest.

The City will have their part done very quickly here, the County is the next step and there is no escalated time constraint here.

If the County was rushed, I would expect to see the County work to expand the Salt Palace into Block D of the West Quarter. The County has already guaranteed funding to the Ritchie Group for parking. I can't remember if it is 1,000 or 1,500 spaces that are guaranteed to be included as part of Block D already. Adding the exhibit and possible meeting space into Block D would be the quickest option for the County. It would mean that there would be additional time taken for the Ritchie Group to update their plans for Block D that would incorporate the additional meeting/exhibit space.

Of course, this is just speculation on any current plans but just rest assured, there will still be some time before we see any work happen on the Entertainment District. This time will provide more opportunities for the overall plans to be refined.

[i-215]

Originally Posted by Makid

They do have conventions scheduled out close to 2030.

I hadn't even thought about that. The County has signed agreements and there's no way they are going to break those.

The convention center probably will be the "limiting reagent" so to speak.