Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Liberty Wellsian

It lost its eclectic heart. I really wish a developer would recognize that and pounce on the opportunity to make their property the new heart of Sugarhouse.

This is my biggest issue with what SugarHouse has become. Salt Lake lost its most unique neighborhood - one that catered to the offbeat crowd and provided shops you wouldn't get in other areas of the city.

Back in the day, SugarHouse had...

• The Heavy Metal Shop
• Blue Boutique (still there, but not in the heart of the community anymore - now more east by Highland High)
• The Free Speech Zone
• Wizards and Dreams
• The witch store in the basement of Wizards and Dreams (my mom used to shop there)
• The Costume Shop
• Cockers
• Haight
• The Bar in SugarHouse
• Fats Grill
• Confettis
• Uprok
• Java Jive
• Jocko's Club Emporium

I mean, and that's just off the top of my head, so, I can go on. Many of these places still exist, but have moved out of SugarHouse - most doing so during the last wave of construction. Many of the businesses located there now are all chains. We've got a Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle, Smashburger, Cubbys, Panda Express ... not necessarily bad things but things you can get in other areas of the valley.

The vibe is gone. It's cool SugarHouse is seeing construction but the gentrification of it over the last ten years has killed what made the neighborhood the most unique in the state. To be honest, there isn't much difference between SugarHoue and Jordan Landing now - just that it's a more urban version of it.

It really started with the Commons at SugarHouse. I get the project took down old, abandoned buildings and a nasty, vacant lot, but it spurred the chain-ification of the neighborhood (even more so than SugarHouse Center, which was developed in the early 90s).

Now there's no going back.

Yes. I have turned into one of those, "back in my day..." kinda guys.

[Orlando]

This could have been a 20+ story tower in downtown. I don't understand why this keeps proliferating out there, and downtown SLC just slowly grows and gets a small portion of the overall office growth.

https://www.buildingsaltlake.com/company-announces-headquarters-point-mountain/

[jetlag]

Originally Posted by Orlando

I don't understand why this keeps proliferating out there, and downtown SLC just slowly grows and gets a small portion of the overall office growth.

I think we need to send our urban planning team some copies of SimCity 2000.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Orlando

This could have been a 20+ story tower in downtown. I don't understand why this keeps proliferating out there, and downtown SLC just slowly grows and gets a small portion of the overall office growth.

https://www.buildingsaltlake.com/company-announces-headquarters-point-mountain/

Space and land value are a big reason why. Much cheaper to build a suburban office complex in Sandy or Draper than a 20+ story tower in downtown Salt Lake City.

[Wasatch Wasteland]

Originally Posted by Orlando

This could have been a 20+ story tower in downtown. I don't understand why this keeps proliferating out there, and downtown SLC just slowly grows and gets a small portion of the overall office growth.

https://www.buildingsaltlake.com/company-announces-headquarters-point-mountain/

Eh, give it 20-30 years, once the amount of available land decreases and the price of building downtown vs in the far flung suburbs becomes more comparable, I’m sure we’ll start to see more investment in downtown office space. That’s what’s happening in San Fran, all the new development was happening to the south suburbs in San Jose for the last few decades, and now that there’s no more land available, office development patterns have shifted back to denser more downtown areas. To a lesser extent (maybe just not quite as far along in the shifting of patterns) this can be seen starting to happen in Seattle, and other geographically constrained cities.

[jetlag]

Originally Posted by Wasatch Wasteland

Eh, give it 20-30 years, once the amount of available land decreases and the price of building downtown vs in the far flung suburbs becomes more comparable, I’m sure we’ll start to see more investment in downtown office space. That’s what’s happening in San Fran, all the new development was happening to the south suburbs in San Jose for the last few decades, and now that there’s no more land available, office development patterns have shifted back to denser more downtown areas. To a lesser extent (maybe just not quite as far along in the shifting of patterns) this can be seen starting to happen in Seattle, and other geographically constrained cities.

And sadly the Bay Area is a mess of traffic and people living far from where they work. SF is nice but Silicon Valley is a freeway dependent disaster. I could only imagine our inversions if we had that level of drivers and traffic around here.

Utah is in such a unique spot where we get to write the story of our boom with all of the learnings from other cities. We've seen this story played out time and time again and I don't know how officials can still encourage this type of sprawl in the 21st century, especially in a geographic area that traps air pollution.

The $21 million government incentive Pluralsight got could have put quite a dent in offsetting the cost of developing somewhere near the city core or existing transit. Instead they were actually encouraged to go to Draper or Lehi. The crappiest part is that some day, as that whole Point of the Mountain area fills in, we the tax payers will need to foot the billions of dollars to incorporate it into our existing transit network, all so that these developers/companies could save tens of millions in land costs.

[Comrade]

There should be a stipulation to those government grants that businesses build urban campuses. I'd like to see this as close to downtown as possible but more importantly, I'd like to see it developed as an urban project and not another suburban office complex.

There is nothing urban about this project. No wonder these areas have trouble building a defined downtown. Can't have a downtown if you can't walk from office to retail to residential. That project does nothing to address traffic concerns. It's gross.

[SFTransplant]

Originally Posted by Wasatch Wasteland

Eh, give it 20-30 years, once the amount of available land decreases and the price of building downtown vs in the far flung suburbs becomes more comparable, I’m sure we’ll start to see more investment in downtown office space. That’s what’s happening in San Fran, all the new development was happening to the south suburbs in San Jose for the last few decades, and now that there’s no more land available, office development patterns have shifted back to denser more downtown areas. To a lesser extent (maybe just not quite as far along in the shifting of patterns) this can be seen starting to happen in Seattle, and other geographically constrained cities.

Yeah. You don't want to replicate what we've done here in the Bay Area. If you don't believe me, take the three hour drive it takes from Palo Alto to SF at rush hour.

[Wasatch Wasteland]

Originally Posted by SFTransplant

Yeah. You don't want to replicate what we've done here in the Bay Area. If you don't believe me, take the three hour drive it takes from Palo Alto to SF at rush hour.

Oh I’m definitely not saying that’s what they should do, it’s just most likely what they will do.

[Liberty Wellsian]

The trick might be to harness the power of the nimbys to keep office parks out of their towns.

[Orlando]

I'm not sure what Seattle and Portland are doing to control these types of developments regionally. But, we are not seeing near as many suburban car-lot office building development as you guys are seeing. There must be some sort of regional controls in-place up here. There has been a lot of government resistance to freeway expansions. This incentivizes people to live closer or to suffer the consequences of living further out, but have a horrible commute. We are seeing lots of highrise urban development up here in Seattle. We have 4 major urban centers in the Seattle metro which receive highrise office and residential (downtown Seattle, downtown Bellevue, downtown Tacoma, and downtown Everett).

I would really like to know, because everytime I come back home, I keep getting disappointed when I see very little urban development compared to all the extraordinary suburban/ex-urban office development. Someone needs to go down to BYU and educate those business tech students(who are starting all these tech startups) about the cons of unsustainable sprawl development and the pros of a more connected urban one.

On a side note, there have been some BYU grads come up here to work at Amazon, but most of them live way way out in the suburbs. It's the mindset. I don't get it.

[asies1981]

The city has released the RFQ for the State Street Plaza site.

[GrandTeton]

Originally Posted by Orlando

I'm not sure what Seattle and Portland are doing to control these types of developments regionally.

Oregon and Washington have similar laws requiring growth to stay within regional boundaries. In Washington, it's called the growth management act, which in general, funnels growth into existing urban areas as opposed to sprawl. Areas outside of the growth boundary are required to remain agricultural/rural. Any city over 50,000 (Yakima, Spokane, Tri-Cities etc.) is required to have growth boundaries.

On a side note, downtown Seattle just hit 70,000 residents. That represents 10% of the entire city's population.

[Makid]

Originally Posted by asies1981

The city has released the RFQ for the State Street Plaza site.

This is good news. Hopefully this will mean another residential tower along State Street.

With 151 pushing up the height for apartment buildings downtown, I can see this spot also sporting a 200' or taller apartment building.

[Ironweed]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Space and land value are a big reason why. Much cheaper to build a suburban office complex in Sandy or Draper than a 20+ story tower in downtown Salt Lake City.

Agreed Orlando. The point of the mountain will become impossibly congested in the near future. Funny how they threw the phony reference of transit as another reason to build there.

SLC seems to be focusing it's effort on the NW quadrant. That's great and all. An inland port is a big deal, but whoever is in charge of luring business downtown is spending all their time playing with a red stapler in the basement furnace room.

[Ironweed]

Originally Posted by jetlag

And sadly the Bay Area is a mess of traffic and people living far from where they work. SF is nice but Silicon Valley is a freeway dependent disaster. I could only imagine our inversions if we had that level of drivers and traffic around here.

Utah is in such a unique spot where we get to write the story of our boom with all of the learnings from other cities. We've seen this story played out time and time again and I don't know how officials can still encourage this type of sprawl in the 21st century, especially in a geographic area that traps air pollution.

The $21 million government incentive Pluralsight got could have put quite a dent in offsetting the cost of developing somewhere near the city core or existing transit. Instead they were actually encouraged to go to Draper or Lehi. The crappiest part is that some day, as that whole Point of the Mountain area fills in, we the tax payers will need to foot the billions of dollars to incorporate it into our existing transit network, all so that these developers/companies could save tens of millions in land costs.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by jetlag

And sadly the Bay Area is a mess of traffic and people living far from where they work. SF is nice but Silicon Valley is a freeway dependent disaster. I could only imagine our inversions if we had that level of drivers and traffic around here.

Utah is in such a unique spot where we get to write the story of our boom with all of the learnings from other cities. We've seen this story played out time and time again and I don't know how officials can still encourage this type of sprawl in the 21st century, especially in a geographic area that traps air pollution.

The $21 million government incentive Pluralsight got could have put quite a dent in offsetting the cost of developing somewhere near the city core or existing transit. Instead they were actually encouraged to go to Draper or Lehi. The crappiest part is that some day, as that whole Point of the Mountain area fills in, we the tax payers will need to foot the billions of dollars to incorporate it into our existing transit network, all so that these developers/companies could save tens of millions in land costs.

There are a few problems at work here.

1. A large number of Utah legislators have had a running feud with SLC since Rocky Anderson was mayor.
2. Power in the legislature has shifted to Utah county. Utah county leadership want to build up northern Utah county for the benefit of their constituents, at the cost of the rest of us.
3. A large number of legislators are real estate developers. They want to develop all of the available land.

So, the same old story is going to continue playing out in Utah.

[Old&New]

Originally Posted by Always Sunny in SLC

If it is Arrow Press/old DV8 is it expected that it will include some of the structures on 100 South and West Temple? That would be a damn shame for any of those buildings to go away. Is there an functional reason that the Rocky Mountain Power Plaza could not be developed if RWP were willing? Meaning that plaza doesn't have anything below it such as critical power distribution components? Also that old Power and Light building behind it isn't a substation, is it?

I posted this a while ago. Wish the county would bring Mr. Anderson of Zion's Bank and the City/Rocky Mountain Power into the conversation as well; would be great to masterplan this block if it is to be the location of the convention center hotel.

[Orlando]

Originally Posted by GrandTeton

Oregon and Washington have similar laws requiring growth to stay within regional boundaries. In Washington, it's called the growth management act, which in general, funnels growth into existing urban areas as opposed to sprawl. Areas outside of the growth boundary are required to remain agricultural/rural. Any city over 50,000 (Yakima, Spokane, Tri-Cities etc.) is required to have growth boundaries.

On a side note, downtown Seattle just hit 70,000 residents. That represents 10% of the entire city's population.

Thanks for the info. I doubt anything like that would pass in Utah, especially with a "conservative" congress that does not like lots of government regulations. Instead, they continue on without realizing how much more it will cost them for infrastructure, highways, water, etc. for the lack of sprawl prohibitive regulations. I wish, wish, wish, that these start up guys would look outside of southern California, Silicon Valley, Arizona, etc. for patterns of development. Take a look at the now behemoth Amazon which has turned Seattle into a city with the most highrises under construction than any other city in the U.S.

[Wasatch Wasteland]

Originally Posted by Orlando

Take a look at the now behemoth Amazon which has turned Seattle into a city with the most highrises under construction than any other city in the U.S.

Not quite true...

New York has nearly 10x as many highrises under construction than Seattle does, and many more times than that proposed. Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami also have roughly 3x as much under construction, and Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, San Fran, and even Austin have roughly the same amount as Seattle.

I think the reason Seattle seems to have so much more development may just be they hype it gets in comparison to other US cities. But yeah, Seattle is actually surprisingly middle of the road when compared to other major US cities in terms of high rise development. Not to discount it’s boom, it’s just the rest of the country is seeing a major boom as well. (Except SLC it seems)