Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[DMTower]

Salt Lake City won't get Amazon, because the regime that runs Utah creates an oppressive atmosphere. If Salt Lake could be taken out of Utah it might stand a chance, but the current governor has a reputation for backwards policies, and Amazon is as progressive as it gets.

[RC14]

I don't think Amazon will choose a rust belt, southern or Midwest city. It doesn't feel like it would fit.
I think Denver and Boston are our toughest competition.

[Makid]

Originally Posted by Utah_Dave

This Amazon thing, although a long shot, could be a good dry run and a catylist for our government to put together a marketing package to entice future companies. They also might as well snag some of our homegrown companies while they are at it instead of Lehi always being the default area of development. I see all sorts of potential but luckily we can fall back on our steady growth and budding tech sector. We just need a home grown tech company to grow into a unicorn and set up shop down town. This is probably our best bet going forward.

I would love to see SLC get Pluralsight to move to the Fleet Block. Pluralsight is moving from Farmington. They are also moving their people out of Lehi and putting them in South or West Jordan until their new HQ is built.

They are planning to spend roughly $325 Million on their new HQ campus. While I would love to see them Downtown, I think the fleet block would be perfect for them while also giving them room to grow.

I don't know if SLC is even trying to land them or others. Outside of the Amazon distribution center, we haven't heard of any addition to the City and definitely no addition/relocation to downtown. I want to hope that something is happening though.

[Marvland]

Originally Posted by ctobsl

Here are the cities that match Amazon's wish list for its second headquarters


Salt Lake is on the bottom of the list.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/here-are...sh-list-for-its-second-headquarters.html

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/09/07/am...-a-new-silicon-valley-james-thomson.html

That list is really stupid. Right, there are no colleges, mass transit or airports in Salt Lake City. I wonder if the results of "Based on those results, Amazon might want to give New York, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston a close look." told them anything of value? Yes, Amazon should just waltz into Manhattan and build a 6 million square foot campus. That could cost tens of billions of dollars, not to mention 100% un-achievable. It does illustrate the weakness of MSA measurements and just how often that handicaps us from an analysis perspective. We need to conjoin our MSA'a (ie our CSA) into an MSA so people don't still think stupid stuff like Bakersfield and Grand Rapids are "larger" than SLC.

[wrendog]

Originally Posted by Marvland

That list is really stupid. Right, there are no colleges, mass transit or airports in Salt Lake City. I wonder if the results of "Based on those results, Amazon might want to give New York, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston a close look." told them anything of value? Yes, Amazon should just waltz into Manhattan and build a 6 million square foot campus. That could cost tens of billions of dollars, not to mention 100% un-achievable. It does illustrate the weakness of MSA measurements and just how often that handicaps us from an analysis perspective. We need to conjoin our MSA'a (ie our CSA) into an MSA so people don't still think stupid stuff like Bakersfield and Grand Rapids are "larger" than SLC.

It's not saying there are no airports, mass transit and colleges in SLC. It is just ranking the top 20 in each category and then getting an aggregate ranking.

It's still bull, but I already posted my opinion about that.

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by Marvland

That list is really stupid. Right, there are no colleges, mass transit or airports in Salt Lake City. I wonder if the results of "Based on those results, Amazon might want to give New York, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston a close look." told them anything of value? Yes, Amazon should just waltz into Manhattan and build a 6 million square foot campus. That could cost tens of billions of dollars, not to mention 100% un-achievable. It does illustrate the weakness of MSA measurements and just how often that handicaps us from an analysis perspective. We need to conjoin our MSA'a (ie our CSA) into an MSA so people don't still think stupid stuff like Bakersfield and Grand Rapids are "larger" than SLC.

They ranked the cities 1-20 but there are more than 20 cities. So if a city was lower than 20(in their view) then it wouldn't get a score for that category. I'm sure they realize that SLC has an airport.

[Marvland]

Originally Posted by Liberty Wellsian

They ranked the cities 1-20 but there are more than 20 cities. So if a city was lower than 20(in their view) then it wouldn't get a score for that category. I'm sure they realize that SLC has an airport.

Of course they realize we have a airport, but they obviously didn't weigh their results in any meaningful way. Salt Lake is 20th in job growth? Utah is no. 1 in private sector job growth. This is the problem with journalist playing statistician. In bulk numbers, of course it leads to their brilliant observation that "Amazon might want to give New York, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston a close look". The report might as well be called "here is a list of top populated media markets". NYC Boston and SF literally have zero land available and some of the most expensive RE on the continent. I do think Atlanta is a great possibility and might actually win this thing.

[Comrade]

Some of it is subjective, or not explained well (unless I missed it). Like, what do they base their college rankings on? The ranking of the school? The total amount of the population enrolled there? The amount of four-year major colleges within the city? Metro? CSA?

I get the transit. Salt Lake has decent transit when you look solely on light-rail and even commuter rail. But it's abysmal with bus routes and that impacts the overall success of it. So, while Salt Lake may rank higher on light-rail usage per 100,000 people, even besting Denver in the last numbers I saw, overall, UTA ranks 32nd overall - just above Santa Clara in ridership, and just below St. Louis.

http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/FactBook/2016-APTA-Fact-Book.pdf

As pointed out, if they're only ranking the top20, and there are more than 20 cities, Salt Lake wouldn't make the cut.

[bob rulz]

I think any ranking of the best cities is simply impossible to do in a meaningful way, and I would pretty much call any of them BS right away. If it's coming from a reputable financial or corporate source, then I might give it a little bit more of a cursory look, but the fact is, what exactly a company is looking for is nearly impossible to quantify in a statistical manner.

[Utah_Dave]

Originally Posted by Makid

I would love to see SLC get Pluralsight to move to the Fleet Block. Pluralsight is moving from Farmington. They are also moving their people out of Lehi and putting them in South or West Jordan until their new HQ is built.

They are planning to spend roughly $325 Million on their new HQ campus. While I would love to see them Downtown, I think the fleet block would be perfect for them while also giving them room to grow.

I don't know if SLC is even trying to land them or others. Outside of the Amazon distribution center, we haven't heard of any addition to the City and definitely no addition/relocation to downtown. I want to hope that something is happening though.

That was good timing Makid! Looks like completely forgot about Salt Lake again . I really wish I was plugged in better and could be a fly on the wall in the decision making. Do the powers that be already have long term plans for the parcels in downtown that no one really know about? Is there bad blood between the city and state? Is downtown really too far from Lehi? Are these companies just following the herd? I sorta have a hard time understanding why companies need to be so Lehi specific. perhaps land is just that much cheaper.

Comrade, GOED employees have ties to this area?

[bob rulz]

Businesses locate to Lehi because land really is THAT much cheaper, and there's a lot more of it. And being in an area humming with similar business activity is also an incentive to those companies.

[Always Sunny in SLC]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Some of it is subjective, or not explained well (unless I missed it). Like, what do they base their college rankings on? The ranking of the school? The total amount of the population enrolled there? The amount of four-year major colleges within the city? Metro? CSA?

I get the transit. Salt Lake has decent transit when you look solely on light-rail and even commuter rail. But it's abysmal with bus routes and that impacts the overall success of it. So, while Salt Lake may rank higher on light-rail usage per 100,000 people, even besting Denver in the last numbers I saw, overall, UTA ranks 32nd overall - just above Santa Clara in ridership, and just below St. Louis.

http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/FactBook/2016-APTA-Fact-Book.pdf

As pointed out, if they're only ranking the top20, and there are more than 20 cities, Salt Lake wouldn't make the cut.

From your avatar I assume you are excited about IT?

[Always Sunny in SLC]

Duplicate.

[Utah_Dave]

Originally Posted by bob rulz

Businesses locate to Lehi because land really is THAT much cheaper, and there's a lot more of it. And being in an area humming with similar business activity is also an incentive to those companies.

Does someone have land prices that confirm this?

[Marvland]

Originally Posted by Utah_Dave

Does someone have land prices that confirm this?

I'd have to pull comps but it's been the truth, but less so nowadays. It really depends on where you are looking. We are now seeing $4mil plus per acre in D1 and D2 in SLC, less so on the periphery. Lehi has been building fast and a good chunk of the vacant land has been spoken for so we will see some parity with SLC periphery pricing soon. CBDis king on pricing because of scarcity and land banking.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Always Sunny in SLC

From your avatar I assume you are excited about IT?

Yes. It was a great movie. I loved It. Thought it was time to update the avatar to the new (and, IMO, better) Pennywise.

[Always Sunny in SLC]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Yes. It was a great movie. I loved It. Thought it was time to update the avatar to the new (and, IMO, better) Pennywise.

I agree, very well done. Damn you Stephen King, clowns used to make people happy.

[airhero]

I had some time on my hands today and I figured it's been a while since my last photo update, so I took pics of a few projects. It was a real rush job.

Liberty Boulevard (~730 E 400 S):




Moda Bonneville (~270 S 500 E), which is now finished, looks better than I was expecting:


4th and 4th (400 S 400 E) is well underway, taken from Barnes Bank site:


600 Lofts (600 S State Street) are pretty much finished:


DA Offices (500 S Main Street):


700 S 300 W (can't remember name):




Milagro Apartments and AC Hotel (200 West 200 South):


Skyhouse (300 W North Temple):


North 4th (~340 North 600 West), would be great to see the dirt lot in the pic get developed:


Hardware West Village in the background and East Village in the foreground (300 North 400 West), these pics are horrible and I'm sorry:




And that's it. There are also Pierpont Apartments (300 West Pierpont Avenue) and the weird hotel west of the late Shilo Inn, but they are both only excavation at this point.

[jubguy3]

Does anyone have renderings for the milagro apartments / AC hotel, and also the Morton on 250S 200E

[airhero]

Being in the 400 S Main area today, I really like the surroundings. Not the most urban or vibrant place (yet), but the surroundings are well-kempt, and any highrises built there will have an unthreatened view of the mountains to the east, because of all the civic buildings. The Grand America, tho not terribly urban, has a nice look and feel. Whoever ends up there will be lucky. Of course, I wish it could be Amazon.