Salt Lake:Official development news thread

[Makid]

Anyone else get the feeling Delt's knows something he isn't sharing?

I honestly like the thought of a MLB stadium, when we get a team, at 1300 at the Franklin Covey/Dirk's Field spot.

[Future Mayor]

Originally Posted by Comrade Reynolds

Just to compare, here is Franklin Covey on the Matheson Courthouse block east of the "Petco Stadium" block.



It'd be a really tight fit.

I agree with you on the NFL thing Comrade, except for the Oklahoma City or Tulsa part. I would think SLC would be in the running either before or at lease dead even with those two.

As for the size of the MLB park. The block in the above picture measured about 705-710 feet from curb to curb in each direction. I measured PNC Park in Pittsburgh (one of the smallest parks and it is 850 x 680. I think a MLB stadium would necessitate closing a street or building on a former industrial site with out a current street grid. We all know how people react to street closings in SLC. Unfortunately I don't see them closing W. Temple or Main Street near Franklin Covey, but maybe they could re-route main street on a diagonal to Richards street and go around the stadium. I'm sure the earth would shift off its axis if we made a crocked street in the city though.

I couldn't get a decent graphic made to show PNC on site but this is approximately how much space it would take, outlined in black.
Re-route Main option

I like the re-routing Main option because it keeps home plate roughly were its always historically been. Plus it gives a little craziness on the street grid. lol

Close down W. Temple option

[urbanboy]

Just to clarify, I never said the Franklin Covey Field was bad location for a MLB stadium. I was refering to the RSL stadium in Sandy. My qualifier was "in or near downtown."

I also think Comrade is right about an NFL team/stadium. However, if/when the time comes, a stadium could deffinately fit inside one of our 10 acre blocks.

This stadium would fit in one of our city blocks. The complex (minus the parking) only covers 10 acres.


[IMG][/IMG]

[Future Mayor]

Originally Posted by urbanboy

Just to clarify, I never said the Franklin Covey Field was bad location for a MLB stadium. I was refering to the RSL stadium in Sandy. My qualifier was "in or near downtown.

I figured you were referring to RSL and I doubt if any of us would be angry if a MLB ballpark went on 1300 S, 2100 S might be a little far.

How do people feel about N. Temple somewhere. I'm not sure on that, not a huge fan but with Traxx going in my opinion could change slightly. It sure could use a kick in the ass economically over there near the fair-park. I don't think Franklin Cover or RSL would have been enough, but maybe MLB or NFL.

[T-Mac]

Just to throw it out there. If a stadium were built in the downtown area, what about taking Main Street or whatever street and making it a tunnel for that block with the stadium overlapping it, if necessary.

[Comrade]

Since we're dreaming up locations. How about a football stadium over on North Temple across from the Fair Park?

[urbanboy]

Originally Posted by T-Mac

Just to throw it out there. If a stadium were built in the downtown area, what about taking Main Street or whatever street and making it a tunnel for that block with the stadium overlapping it, if necessary.

Sorry about shooting down everyone's ideas...however, I think this would also be a bad idea in most cases. In the case of the Salt Palace Arena, I think it was a very bad idea. It created an "edge" separating the city into two halves. Furthermore, since our blocks are extra large, this would be like closing nine streets (18 city blocks) in Portland to both pedestrians and automobiles, making it impassable. The only case I could see this working is if it were running parallel to another "edge" such as a freeway, and the road were to be terminated anyway.

[urbanboy]

Originally Posted by Comrade Reynolds

Since we're dreaming up locations. How about a football stadium over on North Temple across from the Fair Park?

Hey Comrade, While I was an intern at the Mayor's office this last summer, I came across the Real Stadium Site Plan, which was proposed for the Utah State Fair Park. I tried emailing myself the PDF so I could have it in my files. However, the cities email system would not allow me to send it. I really wanted to post them on the forum. It would have been sooo nice had Dave Checkets chosen this for the Real Site. But of course Dave Checkets is mostly interested in building a massive real estate development. He used soccer as sort of a guise to build the public support needed to fund the project. Anyway, back to the stadium, the proposed location for the stadium was near the north east corner of the Fair Grounds. Also a pedestrian promenade ran north and south through the Fair Grounds, running from a diamond shaped plaza (which would have served as an outdoor foyer to both the stadium, the rodeo, and an outdoor amphitheater) directly south, between the four (three and a half) "barn like" buildings lining North Temple--dividing them equally--connecting the stadium to a future TRAX station. Additional parking would have been located across the street (where you placed the stadium in the photo above). This also Created a new entrance into the Fair Grounds (between the barn like buildings).

[DMTower]

From what I understand one of the reasons SLC won't have an NFL team anytime soon is simply local economics. Because games are played on sundays they will never be able to sell enough tickets to support the venue. SLC will need a lot larger of a "sabbath breaking" population before we can afford a team.

[Future Mayor]

Originally Posted by urbanboy

Sorry about shooting down everyone's ideas...however, I think this would also be a bad idea in most cases. In the case of the Salt Palace Arena, I think it was a very bad idea. It created an "edge" separating the city into two halves. Furthermore, since our blocks are extra large, this would be like closing nine streets (18 city blocks) in Portland to both pedestrians and automobiles, making it impassable. The only case I could see this working is if it were running parallel to another "edge" such as a freeway, and the road were to be terminated anyway.

You've twice said that our one block is the equivalent to 9 blocks in Portland, I measured the parking lot between 400 S and 500 S and W. Temple and Main in google earth and it was around 710' from curb to curb. If that's the case you're telling us that Portland has blocks approximately 78' x 78', seems a little small to me. I'm not on Google earth right now but on a regular google map, it says there downtown blocks of Portland are about 200'.


Comrade, I like the placement of a stadium south of the Fair Park, but I also agree with DMTower. We need a massive influx of non lds population, everyone needs to go inactive in the lds church, or our tam would need to play all monday night games.

[Viperlord]

In case you are wondering.... Salt Lake City's blocks are approximatly 660' x 660'. Working in the engineering & land surveying field has its benefits. The early surveyors used rods and chains to measure land with.

a rod/pole = 16.5'
a chain = 66.00'

So, therefore you have 4 rods/poles equaling one chain. And 10 chains equaling the distance of the 660.00' which is the length of one block.

So, theres reasoning behind their madness...

[wrendog]

Why are we talking about an MLB stadium being built?

[delts145]

C'mon Wrendog, allow us some diversion. At least its development related. It's not like we're talking about the latest moose siteing, LOL.

Originally Posted by DMTower

From what I understand one of the reasons SLC won't have an NFL team anytime soon is simply local economics. Because games are played on sundays they will never be able to sell enough tickets to support the venue. SLC will need a lot larger of a "sabbath breaking" population before we can afford a team.

Originally Posted by Future Mayor

Comrade, I like the placement of a stadium south of the Fair Park, but I also agree with DMTower. We need a massive influx of non lds population, everyone needs to go inactive in the lds church, or our team would need to play all monday night games.

That seems like an obvious explanation, but give me your opinions on this. Why is it that every team we have, will usually have the highest or close to the top attendance in the country? Whether it's NBA, or AAA baseball, or MLS etc. Our AAA baseball has a higher attendance average than many major league towns. Now I know we're talking more people in a stadium for NFL or MLB, but our NBA and MLS attendance is much higher on average than state-wide markets that have a much bigger population base. I say that we probably would have a stadium attendance with NFL or MLB that is much higher than many existing towns. I think the Sunday attendance thing is more of an urban myth, like the COB not allowing itself to be outranked in height.

When the Denver Broncos were established back in 1960, the Denver metro market was much smaller than our metro market is today. Infact, the Metro Wasatch has just about caught up with Denver Metro in population base. However, the Denver-Colorado State,and Region-Wide t.v. market is probably twice the size of our regional t.v. market right now. We're even considered a part of the Denver NFL,MLB market. Perhaps,our regional market is now to the point, or just about to the point of climbing on board. Depends on who the Sugardaddy is, and how much of a sports geek they are. Because our region-wide television market,(not our immediate metro) is still small, we will need a Daddy Warbucks with deep pockets.

Every market/major league team needs a Sugardaddy, and the unencumbered political will to bring about a team in their town. If you think we had a problem with making all parties happy on our MLS, then just times that by at least 100 with L.A. getting an NFL team, and where to put the stupid stadium. When we can get a sports-lover like Miller, who is as wealthy as a Sorenson, and the political powers agreeing on a location, then we will have our additional major league teams. What our Mountain Region might lack in T.V. market at this point, it makes up for in other aspects.

Also, MLS fans or not, should we maybe give Checketts a little bit of a break? Checketts is a sports geek, and he genuinely loves soccer. However, even though this market will fair better than most in stadium attendance, the television rights will still be pretty lack-luster. Checketts is wealthy by comparison to the average joe, but he is nowhere close to the same league as a Miller, or even in the same universe as a Sorenson, Holding, or a Marriott. The other profit generating machines which came in to play around this MLS endeavor were an economic reality. The Sandy site was the only site both willing to accomodate the necessary elements of profitable development, and also located in a strategically profitable area,(geographically and psychologically, Geneva was too far south.) We saw how upset many were that the right ingredients did not fall into place for a downtown stadium. Many of us took an attitude that if it cannot be downtown, then it isn't worth even having.

Enter the land barons. I'm not saying Mr. Holding is a Scrooge, and I am forever grateful for his Grand-America dream. But if he had had the same dream for a stadium as the Grand America, we would have seen a stadium downtown. Holding's, or any of the downtown land baron's participation, would have required a little bit of philanthropy or willingness to forgo some profit on the sale of the land. Ofcourse, it is their right to be charitable where they want to be. Do we think we would be a top, national medical location at this point in time? We wouldn't be, if not for the generosity of billionaire, Jon Huntsman.

Anyway, sorry to go on. These are just observations, and I realize there are many gray ingredients to add in to the mix. Rarely is anything black and white. I really value all of you guy's observations, and it definately can help with any of us that might be in a postion to make a small contribution to getting something moved forward, like a taller tower, or a future major league franchise. Hey, it's our future leaders/development geeks like Urbanboy, Viperlord or Future Mayor, and many other forumers who love this field, and will accumulate many observations on this forum and someday develop land along with the billionaire's,(or maybe be a billionaire themselves.)

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[delts145]

Economic future rosy for Utah / Experts upbeat about state's job growth, consumer spending

http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_7411936

...projecting there will be more than 48,000 jobs created in the first six months of next year, for a 3.9 percent increase over the number of new jobs that emerged during the first half of 2007.
Pointing to September's job growth figures, Matthews said Utah was the top state with a 4.4 percent increase.




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[Makid]

Regarding a Football stadium.

I used to think that the land directly south of the State Fair Park would be great. While driving to work this morning I got to thinking about traffic and people around a stadium before and after a game or event.

After thinking about that, I think the ideal location would be 2nd South and between 4th and 5th west. This would put the stadium within easy walking distance of Trax and Commuter Rail plus would give driving access to 4th west. It is also close to the 4th South Freeway enterance and exits.

This location probably would be the best location for the stadium because of the transit options that would be available to everyone. It would also help to increase the land values of the surrounding areas which will assist those developers who are currently planning or building residential properties in the immediate area and it will also provide another catalyst in the area to help compound that of the transit hub.

I wouldn't be against it being in another area of the city but I do think that this area would be perfect for a stadium.

[urbanboy]

Originally Posted by Makid

Regarding a Football stadium...
I think the ideal location would be 2nd South and between 4th and 5th west. This would put the stadium within easy walking distance of Trax and Commuter Rail plus would give driving access to 4th west...

Are you sure this is the location you're really thinking about? This would require that either the south end of gateway, or the Rio Grand and shelter, be torn down. Is this what you had in mind?

[Makid]

Are you sure this is the location you're really thinking about? This would require that either the south end of gateway, or the Rio Grand and shelter, be torn down. Is this what you had in mind?

I was 1 block east. Between 5th and 6th west, people can still access 4th south via 5th west. It may require some businesses to relocate but the transit options are great when thinking of 50,000 plus people being in 1 place and all needing to get there and get home.

Also, I wouldn't be opposed to the shelter being relocated closer to the 9th south area as I feel that the shelter is holding back some larger developments in this area.

[delts145]

Your idea is viable Makid, a location with great assets and a lower risk of collateral damage than many other locations. Also, as you implied,the shelter is going to have to be relocated as soon as feasible. That is not a pipe-dream for Gateway, but a reality.

[Orlando]

Originally Posted by Makid

I was 1 block east. Between 5th and 6th west, people can still access 4th south via 5th west. It may require some businesses to relocate but the transit options are great when thinking of 50,000 plus people being in 1 place and all needing to get there and get home.

Also, I wouldn't be opposed to the shelter being relocated closer to the 9th south area as I feel that the shelter is holding back some larger developments in this area.

I think west of the gateway near the commuter rail and next to the freeway, because it is already an edge, would be the best location by far. I also agree that it would be nice to move the homeless stuff further south and out of the way, but this is very politically & morally controversial. Pioneer park could be much more of an asset to the community than it already is. That whole are has a negative stigma. If the homeless problem was moved, the area around Pioneer park would for sure sprout up with all sorts of restaurants, and condos.

[urbanboy]

delts145 Also, as you implied,the shelter is going to have to be relocated as soon as feasible. That is not a pipe-dream for Gateway, but a reality.

I don't know, the area seems to be doing fine as far a development goes. I am concerned that the shelter would slow down development in any area one might put it, because of the stigma associated with the homeless in general. but the two seem to be coexisting just fine. I think development will continue. What a wonderful thing it is to show inclusivity to our homeless community members by keeping them in the mix, close to transit, surrounding them with good examples, and in turn, reminding those who have homes or are well to do, that homelessness is a problem and we as a community should be more generous. However, I'm not advocating giving money to pan-handlers. The City is planning different projects to reduce pan-handling on our city streets.