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Originally Posted by Comrade
Absolutely. Agreed. It's not just about the architecture but the history, and interesting aspect of the structure. I get none of that from any of these new apartments. They're architecturally boring, have little street engagement and likely will bring zero historical value to the city in 20 to 30 years when they're completely outdated and we're cheering their demise.
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As delts said above, I don't think they're directly comparable to the boring 60s and 70s era apartment buildings. I do think this particular style will age better. They'll never be as valued as the 1930s and earlier era apartments, but I think they're a huge improvement over what we have been doing for the last 50 years in terms of design. The street engagement is not top-notch, but the Capitol Motel doesn't exactly have much street engagement either.
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Exactly the problem. We're so hard up for specific development that we compromise just about everything for cheap, cookie-cutter development. It's the same mindset that drove the ugly urban sprawl that defined much of the 70s and 80s.
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I'm not sure if you meant sprawl or the redevelopment efforts in downtowns during that time period. If you did mean sprawl, that's definitely not the same mindset. Sprawl is an entirely different beast. If you meant the latter, I think we're doing a better job of preserving than we did in the 70s and 80s. We lost a lot more of our historic building stock and a lot of great historic buildings in those time periods. Whole blocks were demolished in those times, sometimes for parking lots. I don't think that's comparable now - the only similar development I can think of recently is where the new Courthouse/Borg Cube is. And we lost a few really great old buildings for that development.
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The cycle is gutting all of Salt Lake's history.
Exactly right and I think that's the problem with Salt Lake and its current development. We're sterilizing the city to the point it's going to have no soul or character. It's sad. And it's something everyone is perfectly okay with because, gosh, it's just an okay looking building. But then you blink and every ounce of history this city has had is now gone because of this mentality. If it's not complete blocks being demolished, we don't care - and even then, we don't really care, do we?
Sure. But what does it matter? You just said you'd probably not care if it was demolished. So, character is irrelevant in your eyes
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We do care and I think it's disingenuous to suggest that we don't. It's not a "do or don't care" situation. There's different levels of caring. I have not suggested that character is irrelevant, and you know that's not what I'm suggesting.
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There are plenty of vacant lots and areas primed for development than what's already there. You can't decry the loss of these smaller buildings and then shrug, which is essentially what you're doing.
Look what's next to the Capitol Motel:
I'd rather get rid of that.
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Sure, so would I. But first you would have to convince them to sell, and get a developer to come in and develop there. If a business just doesn't want to sell or a developer doesn't offer them enough money to convince them to sell, what can we do?
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Your attitude directly proves my point, though. It's not a crisis but the fact remains the complete flippant attitude toward these developments is a problem because it'll eventually get to the point where that fabric won't exist anymore. It's slowly stripping it away that will get you. But the fact is, you do fundamentally disagree. You said it above. You ultimately wouldn't care if that 1940s era apartment building I posted was demolished. You don't seem to really care about the State Street buildings beyond, you know, crocodile tears. That's the problem. You, and the city can collectively talk about retaining the past but if you're shrugging your shoulders at each individual moment that past is demolished, and the character is stripped bit-by-bit from the city, you don't really care about retaining the past. That's fine. I just wholly disagree on that.
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It's not an either/or proposition. We just have a difference of opinion on what structures are and are not worth saving, and a difference in perspective of how bad the problem is.
Most of the damage in the city was done from the 60s to the 80s. I don't disagree that we still can give up too much, but there's also been plenty of mistakes from the past that we've been working to fix. I would bet most of the downtown parking lots were built after something was demolished. Sure, there's still a ton of parking left to develop, and I would love to develop nearly all of it, but look how much we have already developed on.
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Sure seems to work for other cities.
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Does it though? Name me a major city that doesn't have the same issue with losing these smaller old building stock as we do. Or don't end up being really expensive. Sure, San Francisco has done a great job of preserving its old architecture. It's also a city that has priced out the entire lower and middle class. And I'm sure San Francisco has still lost its fair share of old buildings, too.
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I'm confused as to how you cannot agree that it's a generic mid-rise? Please tell me what makes it anymore unique than what is being proposed a block north of it by Cowboy Properties?
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It's got better shape and form and far better street engagement/public space utilization than the development north of it. The cladding also looks nicer. But I don't think either of them is terrible from an architectural perspective.
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SLC has a rich history but it's done an awful job preserving it. Downtown is riddled with ugly 60s and 70s era buildings, and parking lots, because we didn't embrace our history and allowed a lot of smaller, sometimes insignificant buildings, to be demolished with no pause. We're seeing it again. This isn't just about the Capitol Motel - it's about a mindset that everything in the city is expendable.
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As I mentioned above, I don't think the scale of the problem is anywhere near the urban renewal efforts of mid-century.
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Just look at the continued fight some of the neighborhoods are seeing outside downtown. In just ten years, the Yalecrest neighborhood has seen 23 historic homes razed - more than any neighborhood in Utah (averaging about five a year). If that continues, in 20 years, Yalecrest will have lost its entire charm.
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23 homes in 10 years is 2.3 per year, not 5. I don't think the character and charm of Yalecrest is in danger of being lost any time soon.
It also, again, depends on what those homes are being replaced with. Some of the new homes in the Yalecrest area are really nice, modern homes that fit in well and are done tastefully. I can't speak for all of them, but I've seen quite a few good home rebuilds in that area.
You yourself said that character is built by history, but you're not giving any of these developments that you hate time to develop that history.
I know you've decried the loss of "character" in Sugarhouse in the past. But what I see when I go to Sugarhouse now is a place that is livelier, more vibrant, and more fun to be in than it was when I was younger. I'm not going to argue most of the new development is architecturally significant, but frankly neither was anything that was lost that I can think of. In 20-30 years, Sugarhouse will have developed a brand new type of character. Not one that's better or worse than what existed before, just different.
Not all development ends up like Sugarhouse. But I'm using that as an example that people's perceptions of what defines character varies. And frankly this city is going to look so different 30, 40, 50 years down the line that we cannot predict what the character of the city will be. I get your point, I really do. I want Salt Lake to celebrate all of its eras of history (even to an extent the 70s and 80s). I want Salt Lake to have buildings that you can harken back to from all eras. There are some buildings I have decried the loss of. I plan to be more active and vocal in the future. I'm pursuing city planning as a career path, and I hope to stay in Salt Lake and to help find the balance between new development and preservation. Maybe I'll become one of the people you hate, who knows? But my hope is to do my best to find the balance between preservation and the need for new development and change.
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