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Originally Posted by Future Mayor
Yes the city suffered with the flight to the suburbs from the 50's to the 90's but that trend happened in nearly ever city center across the nation. The trends ebb and flow with the wants and desires of the population along with economic and social trends. The trend is shifting to more urban centers as we are witnessing by the resurgence in DT SLC. Sandy isn't as naive as some us us think they are, they realize this trend and they are trying to keep the population they have not suffer the fate of an again suburb with the flight to the city.
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I wouldn't say nearly every city. In fact, the cities hardest hit are still struggling to bring people back to their downtowns. Places like St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit and other rustbelt areas have not been able to return a big portion of the population back to the city. I don't want downtown Salt Lake to become downtown Detroit in 20 years.
And I don't think anyone suggested Sandy was naive, but there is a big difference between trying to keep your population and trying to create a second downtown which, believe it or not, will compete with downtown Salt Lake City. Yet even today, with all that has been done, Salt Lake still has a fairly pathetic downtown in terms of activity. Remember, Salt Lake still boomed in the 1970s and 80s in terms of tower construction, but failed in retail and residential success. And while I have confidence the area is moving in the right direction, the success we've seen has not come when suburbs were directly competing with downtown not only for entertainment options, but residential and commercial as well.
Think about it, in the 1990s, downtown got the bulk of commercial towers, they got the bulk of entertainment options and that renewed Salt Lake's downtown attractiveness. The only thing in the 1990s Salt Lake lost to the suburbs that could have had a major impact on downtown was the E Center. They kept the Utah Jazz downtown, they kept the threatres downtown, they built the Gateway downtown, they built the American Stores tower downtown, even though it was originally planned for West Valley and that impact created a rebirth of sorts, which cut off the trend we were seeing from the 50s until the 90s, where downtown was losing out to the suburbs.
Now imagine if Sandy or another suburb got the Delta Center instead of Salt Lake and the Gateway was never built and the threatres never came and the American Stores Tower went up in West Valley as originally planned. How would downtown look today? It'd be a desolate, pathetic place because Salt Lake would be competing with Sandy and other suburbs for buildings that most would assume originally worked downtown more than the suburbs.
That is the problem we are seeing today. Instead of the major entertainment options automatically going downtown, they are being lost to the suburbs. Now you may say it's Salt Lake's fault for losing them, but it isn't that easy and in the end, if it continues and Salt Lake loses out every single time, people aren't going to want to live downtown because there won't be much entertainment options and the development will only be centered around commercial. Which of course will be competing with the suburbs, who now want to build commercial high-rises and with the entertainment options more plentiful out there, there is a chance Salt Lake even loses out on that. It sounds pretty unlikely, I know, but it doesn't if you realize Salt Lake has been here before. The only thing that kept downtown from folding up was the fact the suburbs didn't want high-rise commercial towers out there. That is the only reason the American Stores built their headquarters downtown, because WVC said they didn't want a tower of that size in their city. Had they accepted that, it would've been there as opposed to downtown.
That is my fear, maybe it's not yours, but I think it's a snowball that will only grow if SLC continues to lose out on these developments. The problem here, though, is that they won't just be losing out to Sandy, then it'll be West Valley and maybe even South Jordan or West Jordan, possibly Draper and then Murray and so on. Now downtown has to compete with every suburb for a development that 20 years ago would without question be located in the heart of the city. And instead of having a centralized core, which I think most of us really want, we'd have a decentralized valley. Ok, you've got the soccer match in Sandy, but the Jazz game is now in West Valley. What attracts people downtown in that scenario? Then we just promote and endorse the idea of urban sprawl. We're not New York, we're not even LA, we can't afford to have everything spread across the valley because it will hurt downtown Salt Lake. See LA could get away with having the Lakers playing in Inglewood (though now they play downtown) and the Dodgers outside of the core, New York can get away with the Mets and Yankees not playing in Manhattan, but Salt Lake can't. There isn't a big enough draw to downtown that could compensate for the losses we're seeing. And that's something we need to address.
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Originally Posted by Future Mayor
Sandy will continue to grow as will the entire region. With the growth numbers the Wasatch Front and Utah in general DT will continue to thrive and grow as it has over the past few years. As transportation infrastructure continues to grow along the Wasatch, especially transit, more and more people will see the benefits of strong downtowns. The population that is moving to SLC is more diverse and many of these individuals are looking to live and work in an urban core. SLC, Ogden and Provo are the only urban cores in the state. As we can all notice, transit is growing and it all focuses on bringing people downtown.
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As I said before, if everything is being built outside of the core, the stadium, the arena, the threatre, the new offices, people aren't going to want to live downtown, not when they can live out in Sandy and get it there. If that happens, which I'm not saying it will, then downtown becomes irrelevant, just as it was in the 70s and 80s, because it will have lost to the suburbs again.
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Originally Posted by Future Mayor
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't think Mayor Becker will back down on bring a theater to DT SLC, he has the support from the community and he has a 800lbs gorilla in his corner (his brother) that has the connections to get the theater. Even is Sandy builds a theater and SLC builds one the booking companies will 8 times out of 10 pick the downtown venue over the suburban mall venue.
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Hopefully he doesn't and hopefully Salt Lake can get it built. But it will be tough if they can't get the backing to go before Sandy and construct it. I've mentioned this on the board before, but the exact same thing happened with the E Center. Salt Lake City had proposed a new hockey arena on the block just south of the Delta Center -- where all those ugly warehouses are. The city was in the planning stages when West Valley released its plan and then began construction before Salt Lake could do anything. Now Salt Lake could have gone ahead with its plans, but The E Center already got an agreement from the Grizzlies and if Salt Lake had built a hockey arena, it would have sat vacant for God knows how long. Now the theatre project is a bit different, but the components are the same. If Salt Lake can't get the funding, like Sandy may be able to do -- whether it's private or public -- and Sandy begins construction, Salt Lake will be forced to withdraw their plan. There is no way the city could take that kind of risk knowing there is a threatre of about the same size being developed 20 miles away.
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Originally Posted by Future Mayor
As for the Jazz moving that is an interesting subject. I think depending on economic conditions at the time and the vibrancy of DT that could be a very interesting situation. I think Larry realizes the effect the DC/ESA had on helping DT. While he does have connections to Sandy I think he would do everything possible to keep the arena SLC.
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I'd like to believe that, but Miller has put more money into areas outside of downtown than he has inside downtown. Miller himself was ready to build an AAA baseball stadium in Sandy because of funding issues and he's located out of Sandy as well. If everything is shifting toward Sandy in 10 years, as it would appear if Salt Lake now loses the theatre to them, then it would probably make more economic sense for Miller to build the arena in Sandy. That would cripple Salt Lake, especially if they have nothing to replace it with. Miller will get cheaper land out there and I'm guessing more support from the legislature than he would if he wanted to keep the arena in Salt Lake.
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Originally Posted by Future Mayor
Hey if I'm on City Council or Mayor when ESA needs to be replaced I will do everything in my power to keep the Jazz in SLC. If I am a developer at the time I will work with Larry, after all I know that guy  , to create a development that could include a new arena. I don't envision it being in the CBD as we currently define it but I would imagine it would be on the outskirts of the CBD, just as the DC was built on the outskirts of downtown when it was built. |
Sometimes doing your all isn't enough. I mean, Rocky and the City Council did everything they could to get RSL to build in Salt Lake. The legislature decided they couldn't use RDA funding, so Salt Lake proposed a site that was cheaper and RSL balked. Sandy had a plan and when they were given the stadium, magically the legislature decides it'll allow RDA funding for sports projects. That, in my opinion, very well could happen again in 10 years. Now hopefully it remains downtown, but if Salt Lake does lose the ESA, unless we magicially get an MLB or NFL team in that span, it will sink downtown. So while we can cheer Sandy on now, realize that it could have a major impact on future development in the capital city.
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oh well, I'll shelve the adolescent humor. 
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