Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[delts145]

Just another brief thought. I very much appreciate the very critical eye that most of you give to Salt Lake's quality of development, and it's overall environment.

This picture below made me chuckle but also a little sad, and probably not for what you're thinking. To be sure this is not the environs of Main Street or Temple Sq. This is not what we want to use as the Wasatch Front's beauty posters. But for a moment, imagine this same street strewn with garbage of every imaginable kind, overgrown weeds 6 feet or taller, scarcely a square inch of structural surface not covered with non artistic graffiti, and I'm not even going to cover the out of control homeless issue. This would be the typical street scene in this type of district here in Los Angeles. While I love L.A., it can be very frustrating at times to walk through too many of it's streets. It takes me on average 3 hours per week to clean up the trash in just my block, which is considered one of the better more attractive residential streets of Central L.A. I also have to call the city every week and spend approx. 30 minutes to go over the garbage list, such as couches, mattress, t.v.'s, refrigerators, etc. that have been dumped off and need to be picked up. Problem is most junk throughout much of Central/Downtown L.A. will never be picked up for months. Most Angeleno's will just not bother to take the few minutes to call the city to come and pick it up. The accumulation is pretty frustrating.

Salt Lake City is by no means perfect, but keep up the good work and keep striving to improve on a good thing.

[Comrade]

Salt Lake lost a massive amount of warehouses from the 1960s through to the 1980s because a good amount of people didn't think they were anything special. It's such a shortsighted, ridiculous argument that, and this may sound dickish, makes anyone who uses it lose credibility with me. Especially if they follow it up with. "no one loves historic gems more than me..."

Yeah, sorry, that isn't true. And I can say this confidently because every single one of you who are okay with its demolition are blindly accepting it without even knowing what will replace it. That tells me everything I need to know about how much you care about preserving a good chunk of the past.

The fact is, Salt Lake is just awful in this regard. Boise has done a far better job protecting a great deal of their older, historic fabric than Salt Lake. I'd wager, of many of the cities I've been to in the west, Salt Lake City is maybe the worst when it comes to having any historical vibe whatsoever. There is just is no fabric of any sort here because we live in a mindset fully committed to bulldozing all these minor buildings that have been in the city for 100+ years ... just to replace them with parking lots or cheap developments that are indistinguishable from what goes up in the suburbs.

Salt Lake is a bland looking city for this reason, especially west of Main Street. The total lack of wanting to sustain any link to the past is pretty evident.

Like I said, in 30 years, Salt Lake is going to be a lifeless, bland, characterless mess because we just passively sit by and let these developers come in and do away with pretty much every inch of our roots.

It's not like downtown Salt Lake City is some new community here. It's pretty old, especially for a western city, and yet, the vibe is slowly disappearing because the historic buildings are slowly disappearing.

So, I disagree. Salt Lake has a piss-poor record of saving its historic integrity.

The city either demolished a significant amount of its historic commercial stock in the 60s, 70s and 80s for parking lots, sports arenas, some minor mid-rises or modern warehouses - or they turned around and reclad a great deal of these older buildings, ruining what made them great in the first place, which also made it that much easier to demolish them years later because, gasp, they were ruined anyway!

And the hard reality is that Salt Lake also didn't have a large amount of commercial centers outside downtown, so, it's not like there's a sizable collection of historic buildings in many neighborhoods. Hell, even SugarHouse, which likely has the largest collection of historic commercial-level buildings outside downtown, has been completely decimated in that regard between 1990 and 2020. That's thirty years of essentially all of the heart of SugarHouse losing a big portion of their historic building stock - and why? Because it's always so easy to accept one building. One warehouse. One church. One old retail space.

And that's the point that some of you don't care to see. It starts as just one building. But no one does anything. They shrug their shoulders. Then a few months later, there's a plan to do away with another building. But again, we shrug. And it continues, for years, until those buildings don't exist anymore. Once they're gone - they gone!

Someone said they think we shouldn't lose the Lutheran church. Great! Guess what? We're going to lose it. Why? Because to a significant amount of other people, they see that Lutheran church in the exact same way you see the warehouse - as nothing special.

And that's the bottom line - and that's what leads to this mentality.

It's the exact same type of mentality that also leads to bigger travesties - like the Newhouse or the demolition of the Shubrick Building - because we build a passiveness to this type of thing.

No one in the city cares that the Lutheran Church is going to be destroyed. Or that the equally historic Victorian next to it, as well. No one cares that the cluster of retail buildings in the Old Greek Town, which have been there for generations, and really a unique quality to the Salt Lake area as a very rare retail node actually outside downtown, are going to be demolished for something that will have even less overall engagement with the neighborhood. Oh sure, they might say, "that —..." but it's the mentality that has consumed this area.

And it's only going to get worse because if you're not speaking up now, you certainly aren't going to speak up when it's maybe even a bigger warehouse.

There are plenty of ways you could integrate that warehouse, as well as the main storefront for Rico's, into the development. But that takes foresight. Something Salt Lake sorely lacks.

[Orlando]

I symphathize with you Comrade. Though, after living in Atlanta, Georgia and Orlando, Florida, my view of Salt Lake City was that it had much more historic charm than those cities and is one of the reasons why I chose not to stay in those cities. I had a tremendous mount of nostalgia during Christmas time about Salt Lake City. Temple Square, the restaurants up by the U, or going to christmas concerts in downtown SLC or up at the U. I had my wedding reception at the Ye Old Meeting House on Highland Drive. I've also been to cities with a lot of older building stock, but had the reverse affect. I lived in Philly for two years, and have been through other cities with lots of older building stock, and there I saw a lot of decaying buildings in disrepair. It was not nice to be in those areas. Philly had massive areas that were decaying.

I hear you about Boise, and assumed that much of their older building stock is still around is because they never had big downtown development that SLC has had. Can you imagine if the Newhouse Hotel was still up? Or what if they kept many of the historic buildings on South Temple between State and West Temple? Perhaps they could have kept many of those older buildings, but then develop newer highrises where there was less older significant building stock.

Regarding Rico's, I'm going to assume that they are going to keep most if not all of the existing exterior and shell, much like the INDUSTRY development. I think the developers in that area understand the value of that old industrial character.

[Orlando]

This is going to be interesting. I guess I didn't realize that this was between 5th & 6th south. Those two streets are like gigantic highways and would impede pedestrian access to the blocks to the north or south. But, I'm glad they are still proposing this development. That gateway is an eyesore. I'm just not sure how desirable it will be to live between those two streets. I hope my concern is unwarranted.

[Atlas]

Despite living in SLC for ten years, I didn't know anything about the Greek Town buildings before reading about them on this forum. I had never heard of the Zephyr Club until a week before its demolition. I didn't know that the Lutheran church was slated for demolition. I didn't even know that the Shubrick Building or the Hotel Newhouse or the Dinwoodey Building even existed. We've lost a lot of good buildings.

There are near-zero levels of awareness about these buildings or their ostensible worth among the general population. Half of the public only becomes aware of their existence when the Tribune writes an article about them, often after they are already slated for demolition. If we are talking about the smaller buildings, many people don't even see the value in them even if they do know about them. There's also the fact that many people think that building more housing is more important than saving small, obscure historic structures, which is an argument I can somewhat sympathize with.

I don't know what the answer is. Maybe we do need a Utah history museum or a Utah architectural history exhibit at the library. Maybe we need to donate to or join some historical society. Maybe we need to all write letters to the editor and try to get more people engaged and interested in historic architecture. Maybe we need to form a group that lobbies the city.

All that said, buildings are not necessarily valuable because of their age. If what is replacing them is better, then I don't think there's much value lost. For example, Main Street Downtown is a wonderful mix of old and new styles and is truly a great urban street. On Main Street, I do think the Hines/LaSalle tower is a good replacement for the decrepit Utah Theater.

I also do not agree that SLC is getting more bland. The area west of Downtown will be much better in ten years than it was ten years ago: more residents, more density, more amenities, more nightlife, more vitality. The Gateway is getting much better, and there are great developments like the West Quarter and Greek Community project in the works.

I don't think something on the scale of the Hotel Newhouse will ever be demolished in SLC again (see what happened with the First Security building), and I think the worst architectural tragedies are behind us. Forward-thinking developments like the Post District and the Telegraph Exchange project (both with adaptive reuse components) make me optimistic about the future of the historic, underutilized buildings of SLC. Hopefully someone at the city takes notice of Hatman's proposal too, so that the Rio Grande Depot can flourish as a train station once more.

[Atlas]

Originally Posted by Orlando

This is going to be interesting. I guess I didn't realize that this was between 5th & 6th south. Those two streets are like gigantic highways and would impede pedestrian access to the blocks to the north or south. But, I'm glad they are still proposing this development. That gateway is an eyesore. I'm just not sure how desirable it will be to live between those two streets. I hope my concern is unwarranted.

I watched the developer's presentation to the planning commission a few months ago and was really impressed with the quality of the development and how they worked around the awful billboards and billboard "viewing corridors" on the site. I wish we could see this level of quality and adaptive reuse in the Depot District, but alas.

The part of the development on the south side of 500 S has already broken ground. There aren't many details on the second phase of the project (on the north side of 500 S), but that image makes it look like an office building.

[Schmoe]

Originally Posted by bob rulz

Hopefully we'll also see Kensington (on the site of the Carl's Jr at 200 S and State) which will be the tallest in the city if it still gets built, but I don't think anybody here is sure yet if COVID has affected that. Given the continued demand for apartment building though, I wouldn't be surprised to still see that one pull through.

My understanding is that the developer is now actively pushing this project forward and aims to break ground next summer after a pandemic delay. I'm hearing there may be some design changes, but not impacting height. Keep those fingers crossed.

[meman]

Steel is going up on the state street side for Tower .

[meman]

Tower 8 I meant to say!!

[Rileybo]

Salt Lake is being destroyed everyday. As much as I’d love a new — skyscraper on main, losing the theater will be a national tragedy. I’m a lover of history and film, it will be a very heartbreaking day for me when it’s leveled. I look forward to the 6th south development, god that’s such a — introduction to the city. At least that off ramp has a killer view of the city. When I used to drive visitors to and from the airport, they’d always comment on that view.

[scottharding]

Originally Posted by Orlando

This is going to be interesting. I guess I didn't realize that this was between 5th & 6th south. Those two streets are like gigantic highways and would impede pedestrian access to the blocks to the north or south. But, I'm glad they are still proposing this development. That gateway is an eyesore. I'm just not sure how desirable it will be to live between those two streets. I hope my concern is unwarranted.

There will be a pedestrian bridge across 5th South (you can see it in the rendering, but it's kinda like looking for Waldo. Not easily spotted). Small help, but help none the less for the problem you're describing.

[bob rulz]

Sad that we need pedestrian bridges because UDOT refuses to care about the walkability of their urban streets.

[Makid]

I do think that buildings in good repair or that could cheaply be repaired should be spared. If not the whole building, at least the facade should be incorporated into a new project so that there is at least some semblance of history.

Now, with that said, just because something is old doesn't mean that it should be preserved. I know it has been brought up numerous times over the years but the Utah Theater is one of those buildings whose time has come and gone. With it costing at least $65 Million for seismic updates and to refurbish the building with no planned uses makes it hard to justify using public funds for the restoration. Too much time had passed with the building succumbing to the elements to allow for a decent restoration.

Now, I am happy that they are going to be preserving and reusing many of the items from the theater in the new tower.

I will guarantee that 50 years from now, no one is going to be walking down Main Street and look at the Hines tower and bemoan the fact that the street level experience is changed because the loss of the theater. This would be different if there was a historic facade but there isn't, not even under the current facade.

That is one of, if not the biggest problems with historic preservation. If it isn't visible to the public, you really don't get public support. Think about it, we only got the Deseret Building (First Security) saved because people could actually see it without needing any type of access.

Then there are the buildings that were reclad in the 60's and 70's. Zims and Dinwoody being some of the more well known of these. Zims has been restored and there are rumors that Dinwoody will be restored as well.

While we may lose some historic buildings here and there, we are keeping many others. The problem though with some of the buildings is that they are too small for preservationists, developers, or the City to justify spending millions of dollars on when there is no ROI other then esthetics. Now, this doesn't mean that developers should not try to incorporate the historic facades into their development, because I think they should, even if they need to redesign the layout of their building slightly to fully incorporate the facade as more than just an accent feature.

Lastly on this topic, I think it would be good if there was a group of people that would work to add some historic buildings to the historic register. This way they could be preserved and kept up. I think it would be better to hear about which buildings will be saved due to this rather than hearing about what has been lost. We should learn from the past so that we can avoid repeating it.

On another subject, Schmoe, thank you for the information regarding the Kensington Tower. I think the original timeline had the ground breaking scheduled for late January or early February, so a 4 to 5 month delay from COVID isn't all that bad.

Do you happen to know if they will renew the lease for the Carl's Jr. to a month to month in December or will Carl's still close at the end of the year?

[delts145]

Pesonally Makid I think if we we're going to dig into the history of the Pantages we would find that for economic reasons the facade of the Theater was not given the same expensive treatment as the theater auditorium interiors. Any number of the gilded historic theaters here in L.A. or Salt Lake's Capitol and Ogden's Egygtian all have facades that denote the same attention to splendor as the interior. Also, typical of a theater of that size and era would have had a front building with a beautifully articulated facade reaching a good mid-rise height. The multi-use structure at the street in front of the theater would have had a luxurious lobby able to accommodate the Theater engagement during the evening while also serving the office/commercial aspects above the lobby area during the day. This would be the norm, instead of that anemic front and squat hallway running through the block in order to reach the auditorium toward the middle of the block. That said, it is still very unfortunate that there is not enough enthusiasm for the restoration of one of the most oppulently articulated theater auditoriums in the nation, while still building the new Tower and what should be a spectacular new lobby serving both the Tower and the Theater. Elements of the demolished portions of the front and hallway entrance could be cleverly incorporated into a very chic and elegant contemporary new lobby, which would serve the dual purpose of the new Tower and the Theater. If the will existed, there's plenty of wealth around to raise the capital needed to preserve at least the Theater auditorium itself.

I am very hopeful for a beautiful new landmark tower on Main, but I will not forget the Pantages demise.

Ultimately, several city governments and influential community leaders failed to step in when an important piece of history was left for decades to deteriorate. Fancy attention-getting facade or not, all of the excuses for not saving at least the irreplaceable auditorium and mezzanine lounge are very weak.

[Atlas]

Originally Posted by Makid

Then there are the buildings that were reclad in the 60's and 70's. Zims and Dinwoody being some of the more well known of these. Zims has been restored and there are rumors that Dinwoody will be restored as well.

That would be great! I'd love to see Dinwoody restored and eventually incorporated/integrated with a new development on the big parking lot next to it (new Zions Bank HQ?). Like someone said awhile back, that side of 100 S is seriously underutilized. It's right by the main entrance to the convention center and it has direct access to City Creek.

[Schmoe]

Originally Posted by Makid

Do you happen to know if they will renew the lease for the Carl's Jr. to a month to month in December or will Carl's still close at the end of the year?

I'm hearing sooner...perhaps before the end of the year.

[Rileybo]

Photo bump.





https://imgur.com/gallery/NJch6GH

[Orlando]

Wow. Those are great photos. The city seems so dense. Delts, let's get these on the City Compilations thread.

[Gastroc]

Originally Posted by Makid

I think that the social club could also be used as a perk for some of the companies near by.

Some companies could offer memberships to their management teams, while others could use it as a recruitment piece to attract or even retain high value employees. I honestly could see Goldman using it as a recruitment tool, the same with some Tech Companies that are either already or looking to move/expand downtown.

Because of who the club is primarily marketed to, the IT and Finance crowd, I don't think the fees are overly expensive. The Gym at City Creek is $75 a month plus a $100 enrollment fee but they also offer corporate discounts, which I could see happen with this club as well.

I would love to join a social club like this but does anyone else think it is too small? The gym looks tiny and so does the pool. I love the idea and location of this but I would be hesitant to join something like this due to small size which would inevitably be too crowded IMO. It should be 2-3 times this size. I don't know if they would limit the amount of members and how they would do that.

[delts145]

Originally Posted by Orlando

Wow. Those are great photos. The city seems so dense. Delts, let's get these on the City Compilations thread.

I was thinking the same thing! I love how dense it looks. I'll post them over on the Comp. Thread now.

Originally Posted by Rileybo

Photo bump.





https://imgur.com/gallery/NJch6GH