Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[felixg]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPrGksSB...dium=copy_link

The tribune just posted about liberty sky to their Instagram, and looking through the comments is wholly depressing nearly everyone seems to be up in arms in opposition to it, and for the most arbitrary reasons. Liberty sky is a purely residential tower, built on a vacant lot, that would providing much needed relief to slc proper’s real estate market, what is not to like? People seem to think that by building more units, we’re somehow increasing the cost of every other unit in the metro rather than inflating them. If I print more money is that going to make the value of the dollar go up?

but seriously is so hard to understand about how housing prices work? Do they all really think if we just scream and cover our ears everything will go away?

[i2theSKY]

Originally Posted by felixg

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPrGksSB...dium=copy_link

The tribune just posted about liberty sky to their Instagram, and looking through the comments is wholly depressing nearly everyone seems to be up in arms in opposition to it, and for the most arbitrary reasons. Liberty sky is a purely residential tower, built on a vacant lot, that would providing much needed relief to slc proper’s real estate market, what is not to like? People seem to think that by building more units, we’re somehow increasing the cost of every other unit in the metro rather than inflating them. If I print more money is that going to make the value of the dollar go up?

but seriously is so hard to understand about how housing prices work? Do they all really think if we just scream and cover our ears everything will go away?

I agree that comment sections, particularly those of media outlets can be very depressing. They are typically full of hate and ignorance regardless of topic.

Liberty Sky is not my favorite tower but it's clearly going to add to the vibrancy and density of downtown. Personally I'm glad Salt Lake is starting to move towards more residential towers vs the typical 5-10 story mega boxes.

[i2theSKY]

Originally Posted by Atlas

Huge shoutout to Martin H Unzon for the new Kensington Tower drawing! I will work on getting the name changed to Astra now.

Thanks for your efforts Atlas, it's certainly a welcome sight to see a new tallest represented! Just a quick observation... when I enter Salt Lake City into the top (City Diagram Search) it still shows the old diagram with Wells Fargo as the tallest, to view Kensington/Astra I have to enter Salt Lake City into the lower (Diagram Search Form).

[bob rulz]

Originally Posted by felixg

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPrGksSB...dium=copy_link

The tribune just posted about liberty sky to their Instagram, and looking through the comments is wholly depressing nearly everyone seems to be up in arms in opposition to it, and for the most arbitrary reasons. Liberty sky is a purely residential tower, built on a vacant lot, that would providing much needed relief to slc proper’s real estate market, what is not to like? People seem to think that by building more units, we’re somehow increasing the cost of every other unit in the metro rather than inflating them. If I print more money is that going to make the value of the dollar go up?

but seriously is so hard to understand about how housing prices work? Do they all really think if we just scream and cover our ears everything will go away?

Comments related to housing are really meaningless. Few of these people actually know anything about how the housing market works, and most of them probably don't even live downtown and may not even visit it much. It's the equivalent of all of the people on KSL and Deseret News complaining about them putting a bike lane in on 300 West while saying that they never go to Salt Lake anymore. So like, who cares about your opinion then?

People just see housing prices going up paired with a lot of development and assume that the prices are going up because of the latter because that's what they can see. Few people really understand how it works or why it happens. These people blame the city planners for not forcing these to be affordable housing as if they have some magical ability to make that happen, or blame Californians moving here for driving housing prices up, without realizing that people are moving here because our economy is good, and if people didn't want to move here, that would likely mean our economy is not doing well, which would be worse for everybody.

I could go on so I'll stop here, but it's really frustrating that people make such shallow observations about development and housing. I get it's not exactly a subject most people are educated on, but I feel like it only takes basic logical skills to understand that the worst thing to do if you want to make housing prices go down would be to stop building housing.

[Blah_Amazing]

Originally Posted by Ironweed

I went to dinner last night with friends who are members of the Greek Orthodox Community Board.

They indicated that the next step for the Greek Town development was for a meeting of Woodbury's attorney with the city's and church's attorneys. If all goes well, they indicated that groundbreaking could occur as early as this fall.

I'm really hoping this project works out.

Greek Town + the West Quarter Phase II across the street + other surrounding projects (Hyatt Regency, Paperbox, etc) would completely transform that section of downtown.

Fingers Crossed!

[Atlas]

Thanks for that update, Ironweed. That's a potentially-transformative project and, like Blah_Amazing said, the area centered around 200 S and 300 W is going to be a great urban environment in the coming years. I do hope the church can help those low-income renters that will be displaced, and I recall that it was their intention to do so.

And I'm not too surprised by the Trib comments. Comments on their articles on Facebook, especially when it comes to housing and development, are usually a total shitshow and that article in particular was tacitly inflammatory. There are usually a significant number of NIMBYs, soy-socialists, and Dunning-Kruger experts that chime in with their negative tripe. Social media encourages and amplifies that kind of divisive behavior, unfortunately.

Speaking of divisive behavior, you all should check out the "Save the Utah Pantages Theatre" Facebook page when you get a chance. It's totally bonkers. They've been dunking on the Sundial Tower lately because it's from Hines, the dreaded Theatre-destroying boogeyman corporation. That and their character attacks on Danny Walz makes the whole endeavor seem really juvenile to me.

Originally Posted by i2theSKY

Thanks for your efforts Atlas, it's certainly a welcome sight to see a new tallest represented! Just a quick observation... when I enter Salt Lake City into the top (City Diagram Search) it still shows the old diagram with Wells Fargo as the tallest, to view Kensington/Astra I have to enter Salt Lake City into the lower (Diagram Search Form).

No problem at all. It's my goal to get our diagram up-to-date with drawings but it's a long process when you're not an editor/artist. Also, for proposed towers you can click the "view proposed" or "view with proposed" to quickly see those drawings. Astra is our only proposed tower with a drawing at the moment but I have submitted requests for the others. I'm waiting on Sundial's official height to get that added to the database.

[airhero]

Originally Posted by Atlas

Speaking of divisive behavior, you all should check out the "Save the Utah Pantages Theatre" Facebook page when you get a chance. It's totally bonkers. They've been dunking on the Sundial Tower lately because it's from Hines, the dreaded Theatre-destroying boogeyman corporation.

Their page comes off as very juvenile and unprofessional. Makes me want to create my own page, if only I had the time.

That being said Sundial does look like a sandcrawler (I like it though). That whole post about it though is mind-numbingly obnoxious.

[jedikermit]

Originally Posted by airhero

Their page comes off as very juvenile and unprofessional. Makes me want to create my own page, if only I had the time.

Their ALL CAPS ARTICLE HEADERS are enough to make me not read further. From what I've heard through city office grapevines their entire "effort" has just been a shitshow. I love/d the Pantages so much. But. Much too little, much too late.

[SLC PopPunk]

Originally Posted by Atlas

No problem at all. It's my goal to get our diagram up-to-date with drawings but it's a long process when you're not an editor/artist. Also, for proposed towers you can click the "view proposed" or "view with proposed" to quickly see those drawings. Astra is our only proposed tower with a drawing at the moment but I have submitted requests for the others. I'm waiting on Sundial's official height to get that added to the database.

I'm currently doing the tutorials on here to learn how to create building diagrams, so hopefully I'll be able to lend a hand on getting the proposals illustrated.

[RC14]

Glass is being installed on the ground floor of 95 State:

[Orlando]

Originally Posted by i2theSKY

Thanks for your efforts Atlas, it's certainly a welcome sight to see a new tallest represented! Just a quick observation... when I enter Salt Lake City into the top (City Diagram Search) it still shows the old diagram with Wells Fargo as the tallest, to view Kensington/Astra I have to enter Salt Lake City into the lower (Diagram Search Form).

Proposed or cancelled building don't show up typically unless you have those types selected.

[rockies]

Originally Posted by Blah_Amazing

https://citizenportal.slcgov.com/Cit...howInspection=

Location: 1861 S 1300 E
A small project I hadn't heard of before has filed Site Development documents.
The project called 'Central Park V' is located directly south adjacent to the recently opened Allen Park across from Westminster College and will be comprised of 5 townhouses.

These are the two houses set to be replaced by the new townhouses:

Just drove past here and these houses have just been demolished. I'm really excited that there are more townhomes being developed right by some that were recently completed. Really awesome location, too.

[Blah_Amazing]

https://citizenportal.slcgov.com/Cit...howInspection=

Project Basics:

• 15 Floors (5 floor podium, 9 floors residential, top floor amenity)
• 175 feet tall (53 meters) to roof
• 242 residential units (48 studio, 50 1-Bed, & 73 2-Bed)
• 134 stacked parking system stalls (ratio of 0.55 : 1)
• 2,760 square feet ground floor retail on Main Street
• 0.57 acre lot in the D1 Zone
• Architecture Firm: FFKR Architects
• Developer: Peg Development

Project Description:

Proposed projected is located at 465 Main Street, in Downtown Salt Lake City. The property is currently a vacant lot that has been subdivided into two lots; the one our project sists on and the adjacent lot which will house an office building. The new construction will be a 9-story tower built over a 5-story concrete podium.
The ground floor will be pedestrian scale retail that engages the street and the TRAX line. The upper floors will all be residential apartments, with a 5th floor amenity deck and a rooftop terrace. Parking will be housed behind the first-floor retail and will be a parking stacker system.

Project Renderings

View looking Northeast from the intersection of Main Street & 500 South


View looking Southeast from Main Street


View looking North from 500 South


View looking Northwest from 500 South


View looking Northwest from slightly above the DA Offices


Site Plan


Vicinity Map


Building Section

Elevations:

West Elevation


West Elevation


North Elevation


South Elevation


West Elevation

[Blah_Amazing]

BTW, should the 'higher roof' of 177.5 feet be considered the building height or the 'roof' of 175 feet?


Also, the western elevation included the Sundial Tower, which was listed as 344 feet tall (sorry the image is a little blurry). So...height confirmation?



BTW, I'm really glad that this project is continuing this trend of including a bronze/copper colored motif that we have been seeing in several other projects as well.

[bob rulz]

Love that height. We need more of that height of residential buildings.

[delts145]

Haha, Agree Bob. Hopefully, more of this will be the new mid-rise height for downtown

Same here Blah_Amazing. I'm really liking the bronze/copper trend as a welcome mix into the downtown. I also like how this design mixes with the DA Offices and Sundial. This particular window pattern is similar to some of the most recently announced towers. I like it, but am even happier now with the variation of the style of the DA office to its east and Sundial to its north. The mix is now especially interesting and attractive. Much more so than if they were all going along with the same pattern.

[Utah_Dave]

Nice work to you and your group Orlando! The building looks great and I agree with the other comments posted here. It has a very grown up look and sets a high bar for other projects of similar size

[Always Sunny in SLC]

I really like what PEG is doing. Between this and Seven O2 Main they are doing quality projects now. They are really pegging these developments.

[wrendog]

Originally Posted by Blah_Amazing

https://citizenportal.slcgov.com/Cit...howInspection=

Project Basics:

• 15 Floors (5 floor podium, 9 floors residential, top floor amenity)
• 175 feet tall (53 meters) to roof
• 242 residential units (48 studio, 50 1-Bed, & 73 2-Bed)
• 134 stacked parking system stalls (ratio of 0.55 : 1)
• 2,760 square feet ground floor retail on Main Street
• 0.57 acre lot in the D1 Zone
• Architecture Firm: FFKR Architects
• Developer: Peg Development

Project Description:

Project Renderings

View looking Northeast from the intersection of Main Street & 500 South


View looking Southeast from Main Street


View looking North from 500 South


View looking Northwest from 500 South


View looking Northwest from slightly above the DA Offices


Site Plan


Vicinity Map


Building Section

Elevations:

West Elevation


West Elevation


North Elevation


South Elevation


West Elevation

Awesome. Just wanted to quote this post so the renders and elevations make it to the next page

[Atlas]

Nice! Love that density and that large ground floor retail space. It's more on the scale of the midrise residential projects that are popping up in Denver.

At 344 ft, Sundial will be between the CCH (335 ft) and One Utah Center (350 ft) in the rankings. That's taller than we were estimating and it will comfortably add +1 to the 100m category!

The names of Astra Tower and 99 West have been updated in the SSP database.

Also worth mentioning is that the design review for the Theatre Tower, which was supposed to happen next week, has been postponed.