Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 3

[ToysNoiz]

Originally Posted by Orlando

Just saw this photo on desnews.com.

That's really really annoying. I don't know about you guys, but I really hate photos of SLC during the mass construction downtown.

Look at this one:



Cranes all over making the buildings look tiny, keybank tower is gone, 222's skeleton is covering Wells Fargo, and 99 is just barely starting.

[CountyLemonade]

Good job identifying the building, crew. I'm watching the news right now and they have no idea what the now-erstwhile building was. But wow—that's really, really unfortunate.

The reporter to whom I'm listening said he could see the flames from west of the airport. Wow.

[delts145]

That is waay sad. Here's the pic that Future Mayor took just a few days ago. I wonder if it was arson caused?


By Future Mayor

[ajiuO]

That sucks.. Big-time for the developer :-(

[jedikermit]

Daaaammit. Are developers/contractors usually insured for that kind of thing before the buildings are finished?

I guess it's less of a loss when it was probably just wood framing instead of all of the other materials that would have been in it six months from now....still sucks.

[Stenar]

When I saw the photo of flames on FB, I figured it was this building. I wonder if the dentists' building next door was damaged. I would imagine, it's really close.

Originally Posted by CountyLemonade

Good job identifying the building, crew. I'm watching the news right now and they have no idea what the now-erstwhile building was. But wow—that's really, really unfortunate.

The reporter to whom I'm listening said he could see the flames from west of the airport. Wow.

[Plaid Shirts]

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86559...nder-construction-in-Salt-Lake-City.html

Here is the breaking news story from Deseret News on the fire.

[EPdesign]

We cleared Salt Lake Regional to be the third Ambulance in. It was pretty bad. The embers were bad enough that they were had concerns about exposure with regards to the Market Place across the street. It sucks because Salt Lake City fire actually had training in that very structure the day before. The heat was impressive

[Wizened Variations]

All over the West buildings like this are being built. The newest twist is to put a 4 or 5 story stick wall structure on a one story concrete base.

Having lived where winters can be brutal, I always have been leery of multistory stick wall structures, particularly when there neither some wide spaced steel framework nor any apparent firewalls. Putting out a fire in a two or three story stick wall structure is hard enough when fire truck and hydrant water does not freeze.

[slc801]

I just went by to take a picture. Here is what it looks like now. It doesn't look like it damaged any of the nearby structures. An article that I read said that they were worried about embers flying onto Smiths and that they doused the roof to make sure they didn't catch fire. As much as this sucks, I'm happy it was this building as opposed to Trolley Square. I was hanging out at a friends house a few blocks east and we could see the mountains of smoke. Someone said that it was coming from Trolley and I was worried that it was Trolley that was on fire.

This may be WAY too early to spread any rumors (and thats what this is, a rumor) but one person said that her mom told her that the crane collapsed onto the power lines. The other day when I went by on a weekend (and I assume that construction crews were gone) the crane was out over the street. It was over the power lines pointing towards Smiths. I thought that it was really odd because I have never seen a crane protrude over a street and there would be no need since they don't need to pick up things from the street. I thought that it was odd and when I heard (once again, the rumor) that the crane fell on the power lines, it reminded me of what I saw about a week ago.

[CofIKid]

The stick frame structures are very safe once they are finished. They are required by code to have fire sprinklers in them along with many other fire codes to adhere too. Also many of the products have a two hour fire rating between units. The older structures without fire suppression systems are the concerning ones.

The developer would most likely have insurance, and insurance among the contractors is dependent upon their contract with the general contractor. Some general contractors provide insurance as part of your work, thus making your bid lower.

An example of this was the construction of City Creek Center, Jacobson, Okland, and Big D with the help of PRI, provided the insurance for the job site, and sub contractors, had to submit safety plans, and meet many requirements to work on site.

[TimeSaltlake]

Originally Posted by EPdesign

We cleared Salt Lake Regional to be the third Ambulance in. It was pretty bad. The embers were bad enough that they were had concerns about exposure with regards to the Market Place across the street. It sucks because Salt Lake City fire actually had training in that very structure the day before. The heat was impressive

Erving? How is school coming along? I take it your still doing the Pre-Architecture program at SLCC?

[EPdesign]

Originally Posted by TimeSaltlake

Erving? How is school coming along? I take it your still doing the Pre-Architecture program at SLCC?

Yeah. Still following that Dream. :-) I inboxed you.

[Future Mayor]

My initially guess would be that a worker left a heater on when they left on Saturday and that at some point it got tipped over, or overheated.

[Future Mayor]

Back to the CCH discussion. If they are looking for a shovel or nearly shovel ready site these are the only locations that I can think of.

Japan Town parking lot, with a potential skybridge connecting to the expo hall.


Dead Goat. A skybridge spanning W. Temple would be enourmous, particularly since I don't see them going straight across (red) considering that would put the skybridge right smack into the Grand Ballroom, so they would have to go on a diagonal. Plus that parcel doesn't seem to have much room for convention space, unless they built all the meeting halls 4-5 floors.


South Temple: I don't see the NE corner of 200 W and S. Temple working as the skybridge would go directly into an entrance, and I would anticipate a tremendous amount of interior remodeling in order to get it to connect to the areas beyond the lobby. The NE Corner of 300 W and S. Temple would have a much easier time connecting to the convention center.
Someone asked about the Radisson Parking lot and the Fidelity Building. As can be seen in this image the parking lot is pretty small, even with the corner Fidelity property and I don't see how they could add a whole lot of additional convention space, unless of course they were to put it on 4-5 floors.


If it is going to be on a shovel or nearly shovel ready parcel, of the four options above I think the Japan Town Parking lot provides the best possible connection, has a decent amount of area available for convention space, and even some large Expo Halls, and a skybridge wouldn't disturb any view corridors. My second option of the four above would the the S. Temple block between 200 and 300 W, using the south side of that block. That location has the most potential for large expanses of convention space, but would require a skybridge for a direct connection and would disturb a view corridor to the UP Depot.

Dead Goat just seems to small with a difficult connection, and S. Temple NE corner of 200 W seems to just have horrible connection options, plus disturbing a view corridor.

[Plaid Shirts]

I think if a CCH is built, officials and who ever has a say in this process should really look at Austin, Texas when it comes to hotels. They have a pretty new W Hotel, and a JW Marriott that is being built that would both look awesome in SLC.

[Stenar]

I like the Japan Town location. I also thought that's how the bridge would work and I like it there a lot.

Originally Posted by Future Mayor

Back to the CCH discussion. If they are looking for a shovel or nearly shovel ready site these are the only locations that I can think of.

Japan Town parking lot, with a potential skybridge connecting to the expo hall.

[delts145]

Massive fire burns in downtown Salt Lake City

(Lennie Mahler | The Salt Lake Tribune) Firefighters battle a four-alarm fire near downtown Salt Lake City, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2014.

By Micahel Mcfall | The Salt Lake Tribune

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57520887-78/fire-firefighters-building-project.html.csp

Towering smoke and spiraling embers filled the sky as an under-construction building project in downtown Salt Lake City turned into an inferno Sunday.

It took at least 60 firefighters a little more than an hour Sunday evening to douse a four-alarm fire at the building, at 550 E. 500 South.

No one was injured, and the cause of the fire is still under investigation...

.

[Makid]

From what I understand, no site has been taken off the table. So RWP is still in discussion.

They do need to get construction going quickly though. This would mean they would need to deal with as few property owners as possible to avoid any hold ups. Whether it will be on a parking lot or if demolition of existing structure/structures are required I can't say. Hopefully a location will be finalized very shortly. Once it is finalized we will know a lot more as to what will be needed.

Also, I don't think we will see anything on the parking lots to the north of the Salt Palace, those areas are planned for development by the LDS Church in the next 10 to 15 years. With them holding onto the land this long, I doubt they would sell it now.

As for what type of public space is needed, I am not fully sure. I have heard that there is a need for both meeting and exhibit space. Meeting space can be completely separate from the Salt Palace but for exhibit space, that has always wanted to be continuous with the current facilities.

For continuous space, there are only a few locations that would work, for just meeting space, there are a few more locations. All of the possible space needs are in the list of possible sites that are being reviewed.

As for when it will come up for a vote, I hope it is sooner but I expect it to be closer to the end of session. That way time is given to ensure that votes are there to pass both chambers and that it will be signed.

[Future Mayor]

Thank you for the non info info. I'm glad to hear that there is no site that is completely off the table, that still gives me hope for RWP. To me RWP is the only place that could add connected large expo space.

I never thought that the S. Temple Parking lots would be a viable option due to the LDS Churches long range plans, but when I thought it had to be shovel ready there were only those few options, including those parking lots.

Here are the same sites, plus RWP with a large Expo Space connection. However please note that the expo space connecting from the site to the Salt Palace isn't drawn anywhere near the actual width of a Salt Palace expo hall, except the RWP option.