Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[SLCLvr]

6th and Main, an eight story podium apartment building south of the Grand America was approved by the SLC Planning Commission last week.http://www.slcdocs.com/Planning/Planning%20Commission/2019/00993SR.pdf

[ThePusherMan]

Originally Posted by SLCLvr

6th and Main, an eight story podium apartment building south of the Grand America was approved by the SLC Planning Commission last week.http://www.slcdocs.com/Planning/Planning%20Commission/2019/00993SR.pdf

I have a new lease on life when it comes to projects like this after visiting Denver last week. Obviously towers are what really get our motor going but the biggest change I saw in Denver since the last time I'd been there (roughly five hears ago) is that it has become and feels denser. Tons of developments like this all over the city and a ton less parking lots is what has made Denver feel really vibrant. Not to mention cool stuff. The Milk Market was one of the cooler places I visited and I feel like SLC is overdue for a couple of those concepts. Not hating on where we are as a city at all. Honestly time in Denver made me appreciate what we have and what I know is coming. Anyway, bring on the development be it 4 stories or 40. We should be happy about it. We need it!

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by UV4EVER

I'd like to see a real study done on the pros and cons (taxes, efficiencies, representation, etc) of changing up some of the local county and city governments. I think we have a couple of good options that could really serve the people better for what they want. Some options that could be explored:

-Merging all of Salt Lake County into a single consolidated city-county
-Splitting Salt Lake County into two counties
-Annexing some of the cities around Salt Lake City into a single consolidated city-county

Personally, I think a mix of some of these options would probably give most people more of what they want. Maybe a new county could be formed with cities from Southern Salt Lake County and Northern Utah County and then the cities in Northern Salt Lake County could merge into a single city-county government. That would give Salt Lake City around 400-600,000 people who want more of united, large-city focus while the new county could have around 400-600,000 for people who want small cities and suburbs.

Maybe we could start a Change.Org initiative.

If people don't want all of SLCO merged into one city because of ideological differences between the north and south, a good option would be to merge SLC, SSL, Millcreek, Murray, Holiday, Midvale, Kearns, Magna, WVC and possibly Cottonwood Heights into a city of approximately 650,000.

And then merge SoJo, Riverton, Herriman, Bluffdale, Draper, Sandy West Jordan*, Taylorsville* and White City into a city of 500,000.

Those two cities would be the 25th and 35th largest cities in the country. Instead of having the largest city in the state being the 116th largest city in the country.

*WJ and Taylorsville are a bit of grey areas for me. I'm not sure which way they lean politically.

[Ironweed]

Originally Posted by SLCLvr

6th and Main, an eight story podium apartment building south of the Grand America was approved by the SLC Planning Commission last week.http://www.slcdocs.com/Planning/Planning%20Commission/2019/00993SR.pdf

This will be much nicer than what is there now. It is nice to see some traction now with the CCH. Even though it is not a big tower, I agree with others that it will fit well in that spot.

Speaking of signature towers. I am of the belief that SLC won't ever get one. At least in my life time (I am age 49) It also appears that there will be fewer and fewer locations for a meager 500-600 footer in the future. My understanding was the city was to have a pyramiding or cascading effect. With the larger buildings along Main. Possibly State.

What corner spots are still available that will allow for a signature tower or two? (Without lop-siding the skyline.) How about: 1.) Federal Reserve Building corner 2.) Carl's Jr Corner 3.) Zions Bank Corner?

One another note, SLC needs better leadership. The current mayor doesn't have it. I kinda like David Ibarra. He actually has business experience. Thoughts?

[Orlando]

Originally Posted by SLCLvr

6th and Main, an eight story podium apartment building south of the Grand America was approved by the SLC Planning Commission last week.http://www.slcdocs.com/Planning/Planning%20Commission/2019/00993SR.pdf

Awesome! I'm excited for this one and The Exchange. Very nicely designed and vibrant ground floor.

[delts145]

Good to see another classy addition for 600 S. My question now would be what is the development tipping point for 600 So. as a gateway for the CBD, where those gross power lines will be taken under ground? I've been waiting for that to happen for a very long time.

[tchild2]

Originally Posted by Reachforthesky

Its crazy how much Utah County and much of it's ideals, have spilled into Southern Salt Lake County. If this county split were to ever happen maybe it would be wise to just make Salt Lake City a consolidated City/County like Denver. That way we answer to no one but ourselves.

Its ridiculous how ego filled and power hungry some of these suburbs have gotten lately. Their population grows a little, and all of a sudden they get these pie in the sky dreams of building their own downtown, knocking off SLC, and becoming THE major city in the Valley! Now we have multiple Suburbs all fighting to be King! Constantly trying to steal power away from SLC hoping to become the dominating force in the valley. Do they not realize they ONLY came into existence because Salt Lake City is a city?! No Major city= NO suburbs!

Yet they all want to bite the hand that feeds them. Constantly kicking dirt on SLC, stealing Businesses, Sports teams/arenas, etc. away from the Capital city! It's ridiculous.

Stay in your lane! You are not a CITY! No one is scratching SLC off the name of the Metro area and renaming it in your honor! You are a SUBURB OF Salt Lake City. SLC is not a suburb of YOU. You serve a role in the valley already. A place for families to live and raise their children.

-

Cities aren't people with egos. It is simple economics and logistics. The costs of development are cheaper in Sandy, Lehi, Pleasant Grove, etc etc and the market demand allows for these developments.

I work in Lehi. That last thing I or a hundred thousand other people want to do is commute all the way into SLC just so that a few skyscraper geeks (I am one of them) can see tall buildings. Given the geographical situation of the Wasatch front, it makes a lot of sense to have dense commercial pockets all along the 1-15 corridor. It makes life better for everyone who has to travel to work.

BTW this is the model of every city with a car culture; expansion of the suburbs. It won't change until there is an economic reason to change.

[Liberty Wellsian]

SLCo has 17 city and 5 township governments(22!). We are part of 1 drainage basin and share air more intimately than most metros. There is 1 International Airport, 1 municipal airport, 1 transit system, 2 interstates, 2 landfills, a handful of water reclamation facilities.

Maybe we don't want a single unified city government but considering all that we have to share 22 is way too many.

[Old&New]

Actually, this would be pretty cool. Not only would this thrust theater be a great interactive theater space for plays, but it would be a catalyst to restore the Pantages theater into a more viable space, giving all three theaters additional flex support space, and could provide additional auditorium space for lectures during large conventions. And yes, eventually Zion's Bank wants to build its own tower here.



Thrust Theater:



• Video Link


Pantages Theater:

http://rustinjessen.com/wordpress/utah-pantages-theater/


Capitol Theater:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dionnemusic/21694814746

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by Old&New

Actually, this would be pretty cool. Not only would this thrust theater be a great interactive theater space for plays, but it would be a catalyst to restore the Pantages theater into a more viable space, giving all three theaters additional flex support space, and could provide additional auditorium space for lectures during large conventions.

I love it but that substation serves the south half of the spcc(north half served from the west) and I'm not sure how much of DT. To make something like this work you would have to get real creative with the substation(underground maybe?) and would certainly require a lot of public funds.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by Makid

I also have an unconfirmed rumor that the twin low rise buildings on the SE corner of West Temple and 2nd South (Olive Garden) will be being redeveloped in the next few years (2 to 5). The only confirmation for this rumor and why I am posting about it is that recently zoning requests were made for the 2 buildings. It could be a coincidence on the timing but who doesn't like a rumor or 2 with a little bit of teeth.

To add a little bite to this rumor, the downtown Olive Garden just closed it’s doors for good.

[Utah_Dave]

Originally Posted by tchild2

Cities aren't people with egos. It is simple economics and logistics. The costs of development are cheaper in Sandy, Lehi, Pleasant Grove, etc etc and the market demand allows for these developments.

I work in Lehi. That last thing I or a hundred thousand other people want to do is commute all the way into SLC just so that a few skyscraper geeks (I am one of them) can see tall buildings. Given the geographical situation of the Wasatch front, it makes a lot of sense to have dense commercial pockets all along the 1-15 corridor. It makes life better for everyone who has to travel to work.

BTW this is the model of every city with a car culture; expansion of the suburbs. It won't change until there is an economic reason to change.

The problem I have with Lehi is it’s not dense at all and only makes the geography situation worse. That area is a bottle neck and we are adding fuel to the fire. It’s poor planning overall because each city is a separate entity and there’s no way to plan the Wasatch front from a big picture perspective. This is probably one of the few benefits of merging the smaller cities together. I have no doubts the transit problems can be overcome but it will be very expensive and we will always be behind the curve. We have the space for the companies and people to live downtown. It’s unfortunate SLC is losing such a large percentage of the growth to the south end of the valley. There will be a turning point and things will shift back north. I gotta be honest, I don’t understand the appeal of the Lehi area at all as a place to live. I believe professionals would much prefer the SLC market as a place to live over Lehi. Just my opinion really. Sun crest is nice and the Alpine area too but the options are limited. If I was a SLC mayor I would look for creative ways to better the city in ways that could attracted people to want to live downtown. We need a cool factor.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by Comrade

What are you talking about? For years, people on this forum have discussed merging ALL of Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City into one mega-city. That idea is fucking silly and stupid for this very reason - the southern end of Salt Lake County might as well be Provo North.

Obviously, he’s saying Democrats in SLCO outnumber Republicans and a combined city-county would be dominated by Democrats, so it doesn’t matter if there are conservative Republicans in the SW valley.

[bob rulz]

But in, say, a city council, those suburban-minded Republicans would have a say in city government, whereas right now they don't at all. Just like people out there don't want the big city making any decisions for them, we don't want them making decisions for us either.

Let Salt Lake City be Salt Lake City and let Herriman be Herriman.

[bob rulz]

Anyway, that is something that will never, EVER happen, so let's get back to the development talk (is the building salt lake blog still dormant? I'm feeling its absence about now).

I like the 600 S apartments proposal, very nice. Now if only we could get the billboards ripped out and the power lines buried.

[jubguy3]

Here is an interesting map that the NYT posted of the 2016 election, precinct by precinct: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/election-2016-voting-precinct-maps.html

The closest Trump precinct in Salt Lake County is south of Murray-Holiday road. You could create a city that contains: Salt Lake, SSL, Millcreek, Murray, Holliday, Cottonwood Heights, Taylorsville, WVC, Kearns, and Magna with a population of approximately ~600k that would still be a safe blue city. Just to scare you guys, Saint George will soon be larger than Salt Lake in a few decades. I don’t think this is an unreasonable idea and I would much rather have a big-tent dynamic with actual political capital than SLC continuing to bubble itself. We need to give SLC’s far left nature more power by letting it cancel out republicans in Magna and Holladay. The blue dynamic isn’t even doing anything beneficial for SLC in terms of passing leftist development legislation.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by jubguy3

Here is an interesting map that the NYT posted of the 2016 election, precinct by precinct: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/election-2016-voting-precinct-maps.html

The closest Trump precinct in Salt Lake County is south of Murray-Holiday road. You could create a city that contains: Salt Lake, SSL, Millcreek, Murray, Holliday, Cottonwood Heights, Taylorsville, WVC, Kearns, and Magna with a population of approximately ~600k that would still be a safe blue city. We need to give SLC’s far left nature more power by letting it cancel out republicans in Magna and Holladay. The blue dynamic isn’t even doing anything beneficial for SLC in terms of passing leftist development legislation.

I literally said this the day before you. Although, I'd add Midvale into SLC as well.

If we combined the north and south into two cities, they'd be approximately 650,000 and 500,000 in size, the 25th and 35th largest cities in the country.

Originally Posted by jubguy3

We need to give SLC’s far left nature more power by letting it cancel out republicans in Magna and Holladay. The blue dynamic isn’t even doing anything beneficial for SLC in terms of passing leftist development legislation.

Republicans in Magna? Almost everyone in Magna is a Democrat. Magna has had a Democrat representing them in the legislature for at least 40 years. Even the few precincts in Magna that went for Trump, he barely won by 3 or 4 points or less.


UPDATE:
I assume you thought there were a bunch of Republicans in Magna because of this huge red (pink) precinct on the west side of Magna. But as you can see, there are only 398 people who voted in that precinct. I don't know why they drew the precinct boundaries that way. Most of the precinct is a hillside/mountain owned by Kennecott and the only people live in the red boxed area in the image below.

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by Stenar

I literally said this the day before you. Although, I'd add Midvale into SLC as well.

If we combined the north and south into two cities, they'd be approximately 650,000 and 500,000 in size, the 25th and 35th largest cities in the country.



Republicans in Magna? Almost everyone in Magna is a Democrat. Magna has had a Democrat representing them in the legislature for at least 40 years. Even the few precincts in Magna that went for Trump, he barely won by 3 or 4 points or less.


UPDATE:
I assume you thought there were a bunch of Republicans in Magna because of this huge red (pink) precinct on the west side of Magna. But as you can see, there are only 398 people who voted in that precinct. I don't know why they drew the precinct boundaries that way. Most of the precinct is a hillside/mountain owned by Kennecott and the only people live in the red boxed area in the image below.

Imagine SLCs transit master plan if it covered 650k instead of 200k. Not only would it be more comprehensive but the city would have a much easier time funding large projects. The scale of the bonds they could issue would be in a completely different league. We could support better and more numerous cultural institutions, parks and open space, public art, etc.

Count me in

[Hatman]

Originally Posted by Old&New

Actually, this would be pretty cool. Not only would this thrust theater be a great interactive theater space for plays, but it would be a catalyst to restore the Pantages theater into a more viable space, giving all three theaters additional flex support space, and could provide additional auditorium space for lectures during large conventions. And yes, eventually Zion's Bank wants to build its own tower here.

I love this idea! It seems that the Pantages Theater needs an implausibly large amount of money in order to be restored to operation, and this plan to connect all three and use their consistent revenue and demand to provide at least one permanent funding source seems like the only real option. As a Salt Lake City tax payer I'm on board!

[Old&New]

Originally Posted by Hatman

I love this idea! It seems that the Pantages Theater needs an implausibly large amount of money in order to be restored to operation, and this plan to connect all three and use their consistent revenue and demand to provide at least one permanent funding source seems like the only real option. As a Salt Lake City tax payer I'm on board!

Thank you Hatman! If this were implemented I would be so so so happy.

Regarding the other topic we've been discussing recently, I was curious to see what the boundaries would look like if the suburbs we were talking about became a part of Salt Lake City, so I drew this up: