Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[Atlas]

Originally Posted by Orlando

What? How do you know these are going to be released this week?

Perhaps I misspoke. Not necessarily "this week" but very soon. From the Trib article yesterday:

New renderings of a ballpark and its immediate surroundings are ready to be released.

In the weeks ahead, Big League Utah Coalition, the group pushing for MLB to grant a franchise to Salt Lake City, will reveal not just fresh, updated renderings of the proposed baseball stadium in the Power District, on the west side of SLC, but also renderings of the development projects around it, including connected usages of the Fairpark area and business propositions on the banks of the Jordan River.

“The renderings are still conceptual,” says Steve Starks, who heads the aforementioned coalition, “but they are more accurate, more detailed than past renderings.”

[Orlando]

Originally Posted by Atlas

Perhaps I misspoke. Not necessarily "this week" but very soon. From the Trib article yesterday:

Okay. To me this is a little frustrating. We won the competition for the Power District a few years ago. We go ahead and begin designing the Power District, which is a term I came up with, btw, during the competition. We got the masterplan pretty far ahead. THEN the baseball announcement...renderings show up which completely dismiss our design progress of the HQ and Phase 1 of the masterplan.

[TheGeographer]

That OKC tower will never get built. Some developer proposed a crazy tall tower in Denver a few years back and it never gained any traction.

Excited to see the MLB proposal!

Orlando, as frustrating as it is to have to go back to drawing board, have they reached out to your team to redesign the Power District around the MLB stadium? Would make sense to have to do a redesign and to include your team in the process. Sounds like they have not, which I understand is frustrating

[Atlas]

Orlando, isn't the first phase of the Power District (nice name choice, btw) already under construction? Was that not your work?

[Orlando]

Sorry. I need to edit my post above. I might have misspoke. I am a little out of the loop since I have changed firms since then. I hope FFKR is able to keep part of the masterplan. I do have some new info, but can't say anything.

[Orlando]

Originally Posted by Atlas

Orlando, isn't the first phase of the Power District (nice name choice, btw) already under construction? Was that not your work?

Phase 1 construction has not begun. It was supposed to start a while ago, and yes, I was a major player involved in it.

[Atlas]

Originally Posted by Orlando

Phase 1 construction has not started yet, and yes, I was a major player involved in it.

Huh, that's disappointing. I thought they had a groundbreaking and everything. The website even says it's under construction.

It will be interesting to see what comes out in the next few weeks. I know Populous was doing the stadium and that it was a mass timber design, which is cool.

[locolife]

Originally Posted by Atlas

Perhaps I misspoke. Not necessarily "this week" but very soon. From the Trib article yesterday:

Can’t wait for something that isn’t conceptual.

[meman]

Does anyone out there know what is going on with the HUGE excavation at 6th South and 4th West???

[Atlas]

J. Fisher is appealing the PC's decision to deny the Edison street development. I found the letter from their attorney (Bruce Baird) to be very unprofessional:

To hold that the “intent” of an ordinance is not met merely because there is an exception to the ordinance, which is specifically allowed by the ordinance itself, is nonsensical. Borderline sad. It might even be tragicomic except that the impact on my client is all too real. The intent is, obviously, to allow exceptions.

If this decision is overturned, there is literally no point in having the planning commission involved with design review.

Originally Posted by meman

Does anyone out there know what is going on with the HUGE excavation at 6th South and 4th West???

Which side?

[LeroyJenkins]

Originally Posted by meman

Does anyone out there know what is going on with the HUGE excavation at 6th South and 4th West???

This is the Hendrey Project (multi-family) built by Roers.

[freeshavocado]

Originally Posted by LeroyJenkins

This is the Hendrey Project (multi-family) built by Roers.

Does anyone happen to have a rendering or link? I can't find anything online.

[Atlas]

Originally Posted by freeshavocado

Does anyone happen to have a rendering or link? I can't find anything online.

This is all I could find, from a LinkedIn post. Also, this Instagram video of the excavation.

We're excited to continue to build our footprint in Salt Lake City with our 3rd project there, The Hendrey. This Opportunity Zone project sits within the popular Granary district. The Hendrey will offer 348-unit market-rate apartments and feature amenities such as coworking spaces, a community lounge, game room, and more! We anticipate welcoming our first residents during Fall 2025.

It's the highlighted parcel. The large, empty lot is where that Embassy Suites would have gone back in 2017 (look at my post a few pages back). No active plans there but it's possible that it's being used as a staging area for construction.

[freeshavocado]

Wow, that's ugly. Thank you for the info!

Edit: Even though it's ugly, I'm always glad for more housing. Some of my favorite cities in the world--Mexico City, Taipei, Bangkok, Tokyo, Hanoi--have the most ugly housing, but they are so fun and vibrant. People are out and about on the streets. There are so many good shops and restaurants, events and festivals. I prefer a populated, vibrant city over an empty city with pristine architecture. Would be great if we could have both, but I'm firmly in the camp of build build build.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by freeshavocado

Wow, that's ugly. Thank you for the info!

Edit: Even though it's ugly, I'm always glad for more housing. Some of my favorite cities in the world--Mexico City, Taipei, Bangkok, Tokyo, Hanoi--have the most ugly housing, but they are so fun and vibrant. People are out and about on the streets. There are so many good shops and restaurants, events and festivals. I prefer a populated, vibrant city over an empty city with pristine architecture. Would be great if we could have both, but I'm firmly in the camp of build build build.

Problem is, there's nothing vibrant about that either.

[RC14]

Originally Posted by freeshavocado

Wow, that's ugly. Thank you for the info!

Edit: Even though it's ugly, I'm always glad for more housing. Some of my favorite cities in the world--Mexico City, Taipei, Bangkok, Tokyo, Hanoi--have the most ugly housing, but they are so fun and vibrant. People are out and about on the streets. There are so many good shops and restaurants, events and festivals. I prefer a populated, vibrant city over an empty city with pristine architecture. Would be great if we could have both, but I'm firmly in the camp of build build build.

Comrade's point is accurate, this isn't vibrant at all. However, you're larger point is a good one. I was able to visit Quito, Ecuador earlier this year and I was impressed by the amount of restaurants and shops. Even in the outskirts of far flung suburbs you can still find walkable streets with all kinds of businesses. It seems like everybody is running a business out of their personal residence.

The other day, I was reading an article from Reason magazine that was published early this year about the favelas in Brazil and how Americans can learn lessons form them and based on what I saw in Ecuador, I think it's on point. Basically in some parts of south America they take ADUs to an extreme. They will buy a property and then build all kinds of auxiliary units onto it that they then rent out and or open a shop or restaurant (usually extra legally). This brings down housing costs and also makes the city more interesting.

I think it would be cool if we could come up with a regulatory framework here that allows for property owners to monetize and be creative with their property but also insures proper title and safe building standards (something that is lacking in South America).

[SLCHenry]

I saw the RDA Station Center renderings, and Im wondering how tall that tallest building is. If anyone happens to have an estimate or know. Lets not get our hopes up for this one, because they still haven’t pushed out the Main Street Tower.

[freeshavocado]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Problem is, there's nothing vibrant about that either.

I should have been more clear. I meant that the cities I mentioned are vibrant and full of energy because of all the housing (much of it ugly). So I'm okay with some ugly housing in SLC if it's easier to build because that speeds us toward increased vibrancy. And vibrancy is what makes a great city IMO, not pristine architecture.

[bob rulz]

The biggest problem is that, while more housing and more people are generally good, vibrancy comes primarily from walkability and urban design.

That's why even large cities in the U.S. can feel dead a lot of the time, because everyone is in their cars. Nobody is on the streets because there just aren't enough places to walk to. You can pack 20,000 people into a place, but if there's nowhere to walk to, they're all still getting in their cars to go somewhere else.

Honestly in order to get the kind of vibrancy that we talk about, we need a massive, wholesale change in land use practices in the U.S. We are moving in a positive direction in some ways, but it's slow, and because every municipality has different land use codes, different zoning, different politicians in charge, etc, it only ever happens piecemeal.

The U.S. is beginning to pick up on the trend of ADUs, allowing the missing middle again, reducing or eliminating parking minimums, etc. The next trend I would love to see is to allow certain kinds of businesses in residential areas. One thing I've thought about is to allow small shops and businesses to set up on prominent street corners in residential areas as a first step. That's basically what the Neighborhood Commercial zoning does in Salt Lake City, but instead of a separate zone for it, why not just incorporate this allowance into residential zones? As far as I know, there aren't really any cities in the U.S. that have yet started allowing for commercial uses in residential areas.

[Orlando]

Merry Christmas to you all! Thank you all for making this forum what it is!