Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 3

[DMTower]

Rue Nouvelle. Simple enough

[Orlando]

nice. a french road name. How about italian? Via Becker? or in English Becker Way or Becker Street.

[Orlando]

I just saw the announcement of the block 69 & 70 competition announced in an international architecture website:

http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.showbriefdetail&newsid=1840

[Future Mayor]

I was going to suggest "Wirick Way" named after Mr Downtown Richard (Dick) Wirick, but they already put up a memorial at the Gallivan Center.

Public Way is ok, but it seems almost to simple IMO. What about Civic Commons, or Civic Place?

[Orlando]

IMO, People's Way or Civic Way sound so communist and too generic. People's Way sounds like a name that would be for a street made in former U.S.S.R.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Orlando

IMO, People's Way or Civic Way sound so communist and too generic. People's Way sounds like a name that would be for a street made in former U.S.S.R.

And?

[enemy87]

So I had a friend share an article with me about City Creek Center, and how it's failing because sales are so low. The author has never been to Utah and I don't believe what he's written because I've seen a lot of sales (myself included) at CCC. So would anyone here be able to provide data that either supports or refutes this? Thanks!

"Salt Lake City now boasts just such a high-end retail establishment, taking up 80 square acres opposite Temple Square. Were you to read the roster of tenants, you might mistake it for a list of boutiques lining Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. And predictably, two months shy of a year after opening, the owners of these stores are still asking the question they asked the first week of operation: "Where are the customers?"

There is plenty of foot traffic, to be sure. By all reports, this mall is a must-see, with indoor waterfalls, dancing waters, a trout-filled creek running through the center, and a gigantic retractable glass ceiling to keep out the snow and rain. And of course there are those dozens of hoity-toity high-priced retail stores, many of which the residents of the state have never been in before, or even heard of. So everyone living up and down the Wasatch Front of course has to go and have a look.

But what people are not doing at this mall is spending sufficient money to keep most of these stores in business for the long term. I live in Sacramento, California, so I haven't been there myself, but I have spoken to many people who have. And executives who lease office space at City Creek Center have told me in confidence that things are going about as well for the merchants at City Creek as they are at the malls in my own city.

Which is to say, not well at all.

Already one clothing store has pulled out, and a restaurant is gone. By all reports, the Food Court is doing quite well overall, because even tourists have to eat. But tourists don't have to buy ninety dollar shirts and three hundred dollar gym bags.

In the world of retail, it is often said that the way to tell if a new store is destined to make it is to see how it weathers its first Christmas season. December sales reports for the stores at City Creek Center have not been encouraging."

Here's the link to the original article, but be warned, it's got a pretty heavy anti-mormon bias.

http://puremormonism.blogspot.com/2013/01/city-creek-how-did-we-come-to-this.html?m=1

[SLC Projects]

Not even going to waste my time opening the link.

[Comrade]

I don't know if it's slow ... but my aunt, who's from Utah, but has since moved out of state (hasn't lived here in over 30 years) was downtown during the Holiday Season and just loved City Creek. But she said something very similar - there were a lot of people gawking and viewing, but not many shopping.

I don't know if that's true or not. I haven't been down there in a while.

[jtrent77]

Sorry, but why would I find anything posted on a "blog" to be credible, especially since it is from "unnamed sources," and even the blog name is clearly out for one purpose only. Investigative "journalism" at its finest.

[Makid]

I work within a very short distance from City Creek. I always see people walking with bags full of items from the stores. I also find it fairly busy outside of lunch time. During lunch times, the place is packed with people. The food court is busy and many people are shopping before and after lunch.

Now, I am not going to say that since I see so many people shopping that the stores are all bursting with cash. I will say that if people weren't buying, storefronts on Main wouldn't be filling in and more businesses wouldn't be wanting to move nearby.

I do however remember stories about City Creek that were published about a month after it opened quoting some of the general managers for many of the stores there all saying that in the first month, they had taken in more money then they expected to in a year. Now, if that is true, people are definitely shopping and not just looking and carrying around bags full of tissues but bags of actual items purchased.

With the coming of the UPAC, UPAC tower and the CC Tower, we are going to see more people downtown and this will further increase the foot traffic and purchases not only at City Creek but also throughout downtown.

[DerrickSLC]

If City Creek was open Sundays, the center would be doing better in sales. City Creek Center and Salt Lake City, with point of sales tax revenue, suffer with it being closed on Sundays. It's baffling that that was actually allowed to be permitted with the billion-dollar development.

Sunday likely ranks as the second or third highest day of shopping. While it's likely the only benefit Gateway receives in the situation, a large number of shoppers are going to the bigger malls, Fashion Place and South Towne that are open limited hours on Sundays (not all day). Since City Creek is church-owned but it's not (but it is) and that's the reason for it's closuse on Sundays, it's a bizarre display of retail ignorance because the majority of mormons and non-mormons in this valley are shopping on Sundays. City Creek had estimated 40% of its sales would come from tourists visiting here in Salt Lake. It seems the issue of being closed half of the weekend would only hurt this projection even more.

City Creek needs to succeed for downtown to succeed but it hasn't had the success forecasted when it first opened. In retail you have to adapt and the stores have adapted. The holiday season was close to estimates for some and came close for others. Personally, I preferred most of the stores while they were at The Gateway vs. City Creek. The size of stores and selection is smaller, which has meant higher prices and less options at a reasonable cost. I'd rather go to a bigger mall and be able to have a larger selection in my price range, but don't because I have no car and taking TRAX to Fashion Place doesn't have much appeal.

The additional fix is to create more downtown housing, creating more foot traffic, with those whose incomes are actually able to afford the selection.

[John Martin]

Source?

[DerrickSLC]

The following builds on the previously posted image of 200 South. The amount of land available for redevelopment can reshape and transform the dynamic of our downtown, adding more residents and foot traffic, increasing retail/dining opportunities and helping to fill in the empty space between destinations while creating new ones. Having never seen any renderings of what new buildings on 200 South might look like, I enjoyed seeing what Comrade had posted. It provided inspiration of what the possibilities are. With the previous discussion of housing, infill and a new corner office tower, I took what he had done and quickly created what it could potentially look like in the future.

Can this be Downtown 2020?



Convention Center Hotel
Located in the distance, a great depiction from Comrade, located on the Royalwood Plaza which seems the most logical and forward-thinking location given size and future potential of 200 South connecting City Creek and The Gateway/Warehouse District.

Downtown Streetcar
Coming soon, maybe not that soon but it's coming. The first potential route starts from the hub and ventures east along 200 East. A suggestion would be for the streetcar to have a tinted/colored concrete (not shown) to provide a stark distinction from the street asphalt, while effectively making the street appear smaller.

Walker Center Garage
It doesn't appear as if the parking garage is going anywhere. Only with a structural evaluation would it be determined if it needed to come down. The image was carried over from Comrade but this would appear more as a needed aesthetic re-clad of the structure that might have an estimated 20+ years of life.

Residential Tower on Regent Street
Much needed and desired, the tower features bottom floor retail/restaurant/cafe space. This design shows what our downtown is both needing and lacking: variation. The angles, color and massing help break up the monotony of blank glass walls and the dated stucco fascination of our current developers (see The Gateway and Questar building). Also, it appears having the building with a setback opens up the street-face and provides sidewalk dining opportunities. Having housing located directly across from the Gallivan Center and it's many loud events would need to be mitigate through design of materials, certain hours of events, etc. Dependent on footprint, the Regent Street parking garage might also have to go, and would need to be replaced with a better functioning parking solution/structure.

200 South & State Glass Tower
If we want to go up, we need to go slim. The example shows the building with it's longer side along State Street, filling the entire space from the corner to Zim's. This transparent office tower would feature sidewalk storefront retail on both street sides and could reach 20+ stories.


In the above image there is also a small building between the residential tower on Regent and the corner glass tower. I didn't have the time to look at the footprint and square footage of the parcels to determine if it is plausible but the building helps to break up the two large structures.

A developer looking at the current site might only see a single office building that would require the entire parcel, eliminating the chance for housing and not going as tall as many of us desire for the cityscape. It's important to break away from what we're accustomed with and what local developers have built, continue to build and continue to propose (not looking at you Boyer, but seriously hire my consulting services). Downtown is an urban setting and it requires a sense of urban design, variation, massing, scale, street-scape and sidewalk-interaction considerations.

[Reachforthesky]

Forbes ranks SLC 5th fastest growing City in America!






http://www.forbes.com/sites/morganbrennan/2013/01/23/americas-fastest-growing-cities/

[jedikermit]

Derrick,

Love your ideas for that part of town. I worked in the Tribune Building for about a decade, and that's been an underused deadzone for a long time now. I especially love the red of the Regent Street residential tower...I'm so tired of beige stucco and smoke/blue glass. Amazing what a little bit of variation does for the whole.

[Future Mayor]

I like the rendering also, and the variety that you added along with the other two that were added prior. While I would love to see the Regent St Garage go, I don't think that's even a remote possibility. One because it will be the main parking for the PAC, and traffic will actually be directed to park there through signage, and two because the PAC tower and the proposed tower in your rendering will both need parking, and it's hard to replace 10 levels of parking that would be eliminated.

I think your two new buildings would fit nicely into the existing urban fabric. With residential on Regent and an office tower on State, with the parking access in between the two.


As for the City Creek Center article. When I first started to read the quotes posted in the forum, I said to myself, "I bet there is an anti-mormon slant to the article. Which as enemy87 pointed out, there is. I too read the praise that has been mentioned about the first month sales exceeding expectations. The blog was quoted as saying that one store and one restaurant have already closed, can someone please tell me what those were? Because in my recollection there have only been three restaurants in the development, Blue Lemon, Texas de Brazil and Cheesecake Factory, and unless things have changed in the last week or so, those are all still in business. The only retail store I can think of that has closed is that Kids store, but that was a corporate thing not a CCC thing, and it's reopening anyway. I too see a lot of people carrying bags around, at all times of the day and night. And maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen where they are handing out empty bags for people to carry around to make the center look busy.


As for the Sunday thing, I don't have a problem with it being closed on Sunday's, the LDS Church put ALL the money up for the development, and obviously did their research and crunched the numbers to make sure it would all pencil out before spending 2 billion on building it. The retailers all knew it would be closed on Sunday before signing leases and they obviously like the numbers they themselves calculated, otherwise they would have never signed a lease. I think the Sunday thing is good for the rest of downtown including Gateway and Main St. You are right that tourists will still be here so if they feel the urge to shop, they will go to Gateway or explore areas outside of City Creek.

[stayinginformed]

Originally Posted by Future Mayor

The blog was quoted as saying that one store and one restaurant have already closed, can someone please tell me what those were? Because in my recollection there have only been three restaurants in the development, Blue Lemon, Texas de Brazil and Cheesecake Factory, and unless things have changed in the last week or so, those are all still in business. The only retail store I can think of that has closed is that Kids store, but that was a corporate thing not a CCC thing, and it's reopening anyway. I too see a lot of people carrying bags around, at all times of the day and night. And maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen where they are handing out empty bags for people to carry around to make the center look busy.

They were probably talking about Big Sal's which was in the food court. From the Tribune:

"Upscale shopping center City Creek Center is trying to collect nearly $44,000 from Big Sal's restaurant, a food court tenant it is evicting. City Creek Center opened in Salt Lake City March 22. The mall, owned and operated by Taubman Centers Inc., has about 80 retailers. Its lawsuit against Big Sal's, filed in 3rd District Court, alleges that the restaurant failed to pay rent and other costs required to remain in the high-end mall."

http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=22451457&itype=storyID

[scottharding]

Yeah, that blog post is bogus.

That mock-up for Salt Lake in 2020 however is awesome! Like, salivating-awesome. I'd love that to happen, and I too love the look of that residential building on the corner of Regent Street.
I really hope that this kind of scenario is inevitable, with City Creek on one side and the Gallivan block now coming into it's own. I hope the new development on State Street fills up quickly. I think it will really provide some life to that block, and this area will be the next to prosper, especially with the UPAC.

[Comrade]

Watching the video on the SixtyNine Seventy Project website really shows the dead zones downtown. It's pretty depressing how underutilized that entire area of the city is - especially when it's essentially a stone's throw away from Main. I hope the city is really serious about redeveloping this block, and the entire 200 S area between Main & State. I really like Derrick's idea.