Quote:
Originally Posted by Comrade
Yeah I'll believe it when there's actually a Granary District. That's another big idea that, beyond the street fair over the summer, hasn't really translated into anything major like the plans they drew up a few years ago.
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I think using the Granary District, as a laboratory, for experimenting with different uses of these wide empty streets is perfect. You can't break it more than it's already broken. We've seen 3rd South transform into a slower more pedestrian intense street by taking the road and dividing it down into more parking and protected bike lanes. That's really the baby step you need to take first.
If we can create this bike and pedestrian corridor between new shopfronts and the existing largely underutilized built structures already there, we really could create a whole new wave of urban life in Salt Lake City.
What excites me the most about this concept is that it forces developers to scale down their projects to a smaller size. Hopefully it would encourage more collaborations between developers much like how we used to build things pre War in this country.
Comrade, I'd argue that one reason you should be more hopeful about this working or anything revolutionary working in the granary district is because it's not crippled by expectations. Part of the reason downtown struggles to develop is because the owners of the different properties are like farmers who keep really old antique cars on their lawns and let them rust; they think what they have is gold but they aren't willing to do anything to make it gold and they're waiting for someone else to come and offer them a lot more than they want to invest in it themselves. The Granary District is really outside of the "Paradise Lost" zone of Salt Lake City where everyone feels a kind of nostalgia for the way Salt Lake City used to be. Owners in Granary don't labor under the delusion that they are going to have the next Convention Center Hotel. Meanwhile, we also don't have to worry about the city doing something stupid like trying to build something like The Gateway there because it really isn't close enough to embarrass the finer sensibilities of the nice part of town. This puts the Granary District in this awesome category of being totally open to individuals buying pieces of it up at a non-inflated value and using their creative energy to reimagine and rebuild it. If Salt Lake City is really going to reimagine urban life it's not going to happen anywhere else.
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