Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 4

[i-215]

Originally Posted by AllOutOfBubbleGum

I can only imagine what a CCH would look like at the 100 South West Temple location. It would eat everything up.

It just hit me: The Church will never develop the blocks between Triad and Temple Square because the development would block view of the Salt Lake Temple in photos of Salt Lake City.

[s.p.hansen]

Originally Posted by asies1981

Podcast with Jill Remington Love, the Salt Lake City Community and Economic Director, and Jason Mathis, the Executive Director of the Downtown Alliance. They discuss the regional and statewide role of downtown Salt Lake and the impact of the Drapers and Sandys competing with downtown.

I'm glad that Jason Mathis says that it doesn't matter what my body size is, that I'm welcome downtown.

Seriously though, I love these podcasts Isaac!


I'm a proponent of annexation, but I want to highlight a counter argument no one seemed to be making on your podcast! Look at what we have done with UTA and what Denver has done with RTD. We keep seeing the bulk of energy going into transit development at a regional level trying to pump people from far flung areas of the burbs into downtown. These haven't done much to create a true counter culture of transit rivaling cars in both cities, but rather, a useful commuter system from the suburbs to both downtowns. Salt Lake has certainly benefited from being at the center of FrontRunner and TRAX and has put a lot of its energy into making this an issue in our greater Wasatch Region so that this could happen.

But now let's imagine the next 25 years of transit with our new 25 year plan for Salt Lake City; we have have the regional infrastructure in place for transit. What can Salt Lake City do that LA, Denver, or even Seattle may not be able to do given its small city footprint and lack of annexation? It can operate politically and financially separate from the areas that it hasn't annexed! Why is that useful? The lion's share of economic output in the whole area that could be open for annexation is downtown. If downtown can pump those resources into a smaller area and doesn't have to pander to a larger area of voting, it can focus its improvement downtown. If Salt Lake City were to annex half the valley and raise a billion dollars for TRAX expansion, it would have to include much more of that area in that improvement, it would be more commuter lines vs. building an auto independant downtown. It would be much harder to do but imagine if Salt Lake City through a mixture of property taxes and other means was able to come up with a 20 year billion dollar bond for TRAX downtown and within the current city footprint! We could actually come up with a transit system that is a real alternative to a car and an attraction in both Utah and the Mountain West. We could be like Portland.

The same rules apply to the RDA. If we annexed West Valley we also annex their urban blight, and while a population of poorer and worse educated people might mean some more tax dollars, now the RDA has to spread the money for redevelopment even further and West Valley has a lot more redeveloping to do than Salt Lake City...

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by i-215

It just hit me: The Church will never develop the blocks between Triad and Temple Square because the development would block view of the Salt Lake Temple in photos of Salt Lake City.

The church has blocked views of the temple from every other direction. I don't think they'll let that stop them.

[N2I.F.]

Originally Posted by delts145

Excellent points Sean. I enjoyed the article, and do think that much of the middle of the country is considered flyover. I do think that Salt Lake and Denver have graduated beyond that point though, at least for most of those who do live on the West Coast, who actually travel or take vacations. Salt Lake City specifically, and Utah in general has become synonymous with destination vacation for most educated Californians.

I believe very strongly once Salt Lake has built it's major CCH, plus the newly added hundreds of additional boutique and assorted hotel rooms, it will be pretty difficult for most mid and some larger cities to compete with it's obvious draws. Utah's exceptional scenery and Salt Lake's proximity to it's gorgeous mountains isn't the secret it once was.

I like your your choice of words delts, *educated Californians*

[asies1981]

Originally Posted by s.p.hansen

I'm glad that Jason Mathis says that it doesn't matter what my body size is, that I'm welcome downtown.

Seriously though, I love these podcasts Isaac!


I'm a proponent of annexation, but I want to highlight a counter argument no one seemed to be making on your podcast! Look at what we have done with UTA and what Denver has done with RTD. We keep seeing the bulk of energy going into transit development at a regional level trying to pump people from far flung areas of the burbs into downtown. These haven't done much to create a true counter culture of transit rivaling cars in both cities, but rather, a useful commuter system from the suburbs to both downtowns. Salt Lake has certainly benefited from being at the center of FrontRunner and TRAX and has put a lot of its energy into making this an issue in our greater Wasatch Region so that this could happen.

But now let's imagine the next 25 years of transit with our new 25 year plan for Salt Lake City; we have have the regional infrastructure in place for transit. What can Salt Lake City do that LA, Denver, or even Seattle may not be able to do given its small city footprint and lack of annexation? It can operate politically and financially separate from the areas that it hasn't annexed! Why is that useful? The lion's share of economic output in the whole area that could be open for annexation is downtown. If downtown can pump those resources into a smaller area and doesn't have to pander to a larger area of voting, it can focus its improvement downtown. If Salt Lake City were to annex half the valley and raise a billion dollars for TRAX expansion, it would have to include much more of that area in that improvement, it would be more commuter lines vs. building an auto independant downtown. It would be much harder to do but imagine if Salt Lake City through a mixture of property taxes and other means was able to come up with a 20 year billion dollar bond for TRAX downtown and within the current city footprint! We could actually come up with a transit system that is a real alternative to a car and an attraction in both Utah and the Mountain West. We could be like Portland.

The same rules apply to the RDA. If we annexed West Valley we also annex their urban blight, and while a population of poorer and worse educated people might mean some more tax dollars, now the RDA has to spread the money for redevelopment even further and West Valley has a lot more redeveloping to do than Salt Lake City...

If Salt Lake continues to build up and increase density, it will remain the state's largest city. Salt Lake is only 10 square miles less than Philadelphia in area, a city with 1.6 million people. Although Salt Lake's 129 square miles include city creek canyon and large swaths of the west side that will probably never be developed for residential use. There are much smaller cities in area with significantly larger populations- Seattle is 84 square miles, both Boston and San Fransisco are around 48 square miles.

[s.p.hansen]

Originally Posted by asies1981

If Salt Lake continues to build up and increase density, it will remain the state's largest city. Salt Lake is only 10 square miles less than Philadelphia in area, a city with 1.6 million people. Although Salt Lake's 129 square miles include city creek canyon and large swaths of the west side that will probably never be developed for residential use. There are much smaller cities in area with significantly larger populations- Seattle is 84 square miles, both Boston and San Fransisco are around 48 square miles.

Seattle is 142 square miles. San Francisco is indeed 48, and Philly is 142. If you are comparing annexed to annexed it's bigger for many cities. If you comparing CBD to CBD then Salt Lake City is one of the smallest.

It would be useful to evaluate our square miles to not include protected areas (especially swamp land).

It's not fair for you to compare our whole city land footprint to CBD Seattle. That's like when people say Utah is the second driest state but we use the most water and then totally fail to consider that 80% of us live in parts that get 21" of rain on average a year (enough to grow wheat without sprinklers; more water than a lot of parts of Oklahoma).

But yeah, if we woke up and Denver or Seattle's CBD was super imposed over SLC, we'd have room.

[JiminyCricket II]

Originally Posted by s.p.hansen

Seattle is 142 square miles. San Francisco is indeed 48, and Philly is 142. If you are comparing annexed to annexed it's bigger for many cities. If you comparing CBD to CBD then Salt Lake City is one of the smallest.

It would be useful to evaluate our square miles to not include protected areas (especially swamp land).

It's not fair for you to compare our whole city land footprint to CBD Seattle. That's like when people say Utah is the second driest state but we use the most water and then totally fail to consider that 80% of us live in parts that get 21" of rain on average a year (enough to grow wheat without sprinklers; more water than a lot of parts of Oklahoma).

But yeah, if we woke up and Denver or Seattle's CBD was super imposed over SLC, we'd have room.

Seattle is 84 sq. miles of land, your figure is with water area. SF and Boston are nearly 100% built out in their small foot prints and can only grow in 1 more dimension

I can't remember, is SLC airport in the city limits?

[DCRes]

Originally Posted by i-215

It just hit me: The Church will never develop the blocks between Triad and Temple Square because the development would block view of the Salt Lake Temple in photos of Salt Lake City.

That block is directly west of Temple Square so it would only impact the view from the west, which is already blocked by Triad and parts of Gateway. I think they would develop midrise buildings there (possibly a BYU Salt Lake as was discussed over 10 years ago now). Building on this block wouldn't block views from the north west which is by far the most popular view of downtown, and where the temple is most prominent.

[s.p.hansen]

Originally Posted by JiminyCricket II

Seattle is 84 sq. miles of land, your figure is with water area. SF and Boston are nearly 100% built out in their small foot prints and can only grow in 1 more dimension

I can't remember, is SLC airport in the city limits?

Holy shit, you're right! They claimed the seas!

[Orlando]

Originally Posted by i-215

It just hit me: The Church will never develop the blocks between Triad and Temple Square because the development would block view of the Salt Lake Temple in photos of Salt Lake City.

Actually, the church has had plans for those blocks for quite some time. I've seen them. However, I believe that you are saying is that the church will never allow a building larger enough to block the view of the temple from those blocks, in which case, I believe you are correct. The plans that I saw showed a campus of midrise buildings.

[s.p.hansen]

Come to think about it, you guys are right. I think people like me don't think about the area of our city properly. It's easy for me to think about all the distinct districts of San Francisco and how big the city seems on foot and then simply forget Glendale exists. We have a lot of distance without a branded character that makes what walkably feels like Salt Lake City seem much smaller. We have a lot of room for improvement.

[Orlando]

Has anyone heard about this project? http://www.sltrib.com/news/2854940-155/new-apartment-project-on-900-east

[s.p.hansen]

Originally Posted by Orlando

Has anyone heard about this project? http://www.sltrib.com/news/2854940-155/new-apartment-project-on-900-east

http://housingdevelopmentcorp.com/9th-east-lofts

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7595562,...IhjeUk5YJzdLXa6mW1Aow!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[DCRes]

I noticed on my drive in this morning that there seems to be an exterior renovation going on of the Hampton Inn on the corner of 400 S 300 W. It looks like they are getting rid of the pitched roof look. I'm sure it will still look pretty suburban, especially with the surface parking lot all around it, but hopefully it looks a little better than before.

[IMG] by , on Flickr[/IMG]

[DCRes]

I remember hearing a few years ago that Flying J had purchased an office building downtown on State Street. A co-worker has a friend that works for Flying J and he told me yesterday about the plans for the building. It is the approximately 12 story building on the north east corner of 200 S State Street. He said that Flying J has moved their corporate offices to the top 2 floors and has a pretty cool build out, with lots of pictures showing the history of the company and such. Maverick (owned by Flying J) is taking a number of floors in the building as well, and a call center will be in part of it too. They will be putting a Maverick convenience store at ground level and there will be a Maverick sign on the top of the building.

I know that Flying J has a fairly large office in Ogden (about a 7 story building in a campus feel on Harrison). I'm guessing they're not moving all of that to SLC.

[linguisize]

Originally Posted by DCRes

I noticed on my drive in this morning that there seems to be an exterior renovation going on of the Hampton Inn on the corner of 400 S 300 W. It looks like they are getting rid of the pitched roof look. I'm sure it will still look pretty suburban, especially with the surface parking lot all around it, but hopefully it looks a little better than before.

Finally! Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll change that beige stucco to the weird olive green beige stucco that's getting used everywhere... Looks like they're just going with that odd crown that is so popular on all new cheap hotels as well. I'm sorry I'm negative.

[arkhitektor]

Originally Posted by linguisize

Finally! Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll change that beige stucco to the weird olive green beige stucco that's getting used everywhere... Look like they're going with that odd crown that is so popular on all new cheap hotels as well. I'm sorry I'm negative.

Yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath for a stunning transformation of the Hampton Inn. By the look of the framing they've started doing for the crown, it looks like they're just updating it from a 90's era suburban motel to a 2000's era suburban motel:

[linguisize]

Originally Posted by arkhitektor

Yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath for a stunning transformation of the Hampton Inn. By the look of the framing they've started doing for the crown, it looks like they're just updating it from a 90's era suburban motel to a 2000's era suburban motel:]

Stunning transformation... lol. That picture you posted is about what I was expecting.

[AllOutOfBubbleGum]

Originally Posted by DCRes

I remember hearing a few years ago that Flying J had purchased an office building downtown on State Street. A co-worker has a friend that works for Flying J and he told me yesterday about the plans for the building. It is the approximately 12 story building on the north east corner of 200 S State Street. He said that Flying J has moved their corporate offices to the top 2 floors and has a pretty cool build out, with lots of pictures showing the history of the company and such. Maverick (owned by Flying J) is taking a number of floors in the building as well, and a call center will be in part of it too. They will be putting a Maverick convenience store at ground level and there will be a Maverick sign on the top of the building.

I know that Flying J has a fairly large office in Ogden (about a 7 story building in a campus feel on Harrison). I'm guessing they're not moving all of that to SLC.

I talked to someone about 3 months ago about Flying J moving into that location in Downtown. They also do rail shipping and it makes more money then the gas stations do. I would suppose that is what will stay in Ogden.

[asies1981]

The Planning Commission approved the variances for the 600 South Apartments.