Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[Ironweed]

The LDS church did its part with the City Creek. I just don't understand why the little downtown of SLC hasn't hit critical mass?

[i-215]

Because downtown SLC is coming of age at a time of serious affordability problems. Year over year wages up 2% but rents up double or triple that?

Instead, everyone is just moving into suburban basements.

Had the city taken off during the 80s or 90s, it would have really taken off.

[ajiuO]

Haha. They have a helicopter circling around the Rio Grand area tonight.

[SLC2GeorgetownU]

I FOUND THIS ABOUT THE PROJECT.....WHICH IS NEW...

PHEW.... I ALMOST IT....I LOVE THIS PROJECT.


http://www.orimedia.com/feature-projects/regent-hotel

[bob rulz]

Originally Posted by Old&New

Salt Lake City is beautiful has has abundant natural resources, and if it weren't for the repellent effect of the Mormon brand, the city would be closer to the size of Denver or Calgary, not Tuscan or Albuquerque.

If it weren't for the LDS Church, Salt Lake City would be just as likely to be insignificant. The presence of the church brings a great amount of international attention to the city, whether it's attention you like or not is beside the point.

And anyway, Salt Lake is a significantly more attractive and interesting city than either Tucson or Albuquerque.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by bob rulz

If it weren't for the LDS Church, Salt Lake City would be just as likely to be insignificant. The presence of the church brings a great amount of international attention to the city, whether it's attention you like or not is beside the point.

And anyway, Salt Lake is a significantly more attractive and interesting city than either Tucson or Albuquerque.

Probably right but that last comment is silly. Albuquerque is a fantastic city with great history and some pretty incredible architecture in its own right.

[Jiffy]

Originally Posted by SLC2GeorgetownU

I FOUND THIS ABOUT THE PROJECT.....WHICH IS NEW...

PHEW.... I ALMOST IT....I LOVE THIS PROJECT.


http://www.orimedia.com/feature-projects/regent-hotel

That promo video almost scared me! She seemed to look so depressed and It looked like her last night to live.
The hotel could have done so much better on the video, other than that awesome project! Is it still alive?

also side note to go with all the above comments talking about how if it wasn't for the church then Salt Lake would be more like Denver or Calgary- I wouldn't be so sure about that. If it wasn't for the church then there would be no city started and developed there. And almost all the growth to Utah over the past 100 years + has been members of the LDS Church moving there (I understand that is starting to change). Maybe someone would have started a few towns but who's to say there would even be a city there if it wasn't for the Church. I'm sure there would be some tourist towns but to say a city is quite exaggerating it.

Just because a place is beautiful isn't enough to cause a big enough boom to create a city. Every City is there for a reason from something that was sparked from necessity. Not so much beauty. Sure some people will move or retire somewhere beautiful but that's not enough to create a huge boom unless your Florida- and even then. Denver didn't become a huge city because of the mountains and outdoor recreation, that helps, but the city was sparked due to the gold rush when they found gold in the mountains there. California is the same: the gold rush and importing caused those cities to start and thrive- not the beauty.

So beauty and recreation can certainly help, but to say its enough to become a city is foolish. Colorado Springs is a outdoor juggernaut and has Americas mountain and the second most visited mountain in the world and people from around the world go there. But it hasn't been enough to create a huge boom to create a large city. It is a city but the city was sparked by again the gold rush. And has had very steady economy. But I wouldn't say a great one.

Salt Lake was founded and the economy has been almost completely dependent on the church since it was founded. It wasn't until recently that the city was getting more economical sustainable on other/outdoor resources.

[Jiffy]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Probably right but that last comment is silly. Albuquerque is a fantastic city with great history and some pretty incredible architecture in its own right.

Albuquerque=

Sorry!

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by Old&New

Salt Lake City is beautiful has has abundant natural resources, and if it weren't for the repellent effect of the Mormon brand, the city would be closer to the size of Denver or Calgary, not Tuscan or Albuquerque.

Isn't the Salt Lake City MSA essentially the same size as Calgary? Calgary's metro population (~1.4 million) might be 200,000 people larger.

[Marvland]

Originally Posted by Old&New

Salt Lake City is beautiful has has abundant natural resources, and if it weren't for the repellent effect of the Mormon brand, the city would be closer to the size of Denver or Calgary, not Tuscan or Albuquerque.

Salt lake is way bigger than Calgary and has a higher overall construction volume than Denver, a city that is way bigger. But please. Continue.

[grasscom]

Originally Posted by Marvland

Salt lake is way bigger than Calgary and has a higher overall construction volume than Denver, a city that is way bigger. But please. Continue.

I don't know where you are getting your info from- and you may be right. But I was just in Denver and I can say without a single doubt in my mind that there is WAY more construction going on there than here in Salt Lake (unless you count houses being built.) they have cranes and construction everywhere you look. And projects that are much larger than anything being built here.

Old&New Quote:Salt Lake City is beautiful has has abundant natural resources, and if it weren't for the repellent effect of the Mormon brand, the city would be closer to the size of Denver or Calgary, not Tuscan or Albuquerque.

Also Salt Lake is bigger than Calgary. But I don't believe you can compare us to a foreign city. Both countries build cities different. If that were true then Oklahoma City, Oakland, and other comparable cities should be right there with Denver and Calgary.

[TonyAnderson]

Originally Posted by Old&New

Salt Lake City is beautiful has has abundant natural resources, and if it weren't for the repellent effect of the Mormon brand, the city would be closer to the size of Denver or Calgary, not Tuscan or Albuquerque.

Nah, the real problem lies with the actual city leaders. They're far less progressive than the people of the city want to give them credit for, especially from a city / urban development standpoint. Hopefully with the vast addition of people moving in to more urban developments throughout the city, they can start having more a say.

[AllOutOfBubbleGum]

Guess who's on the list for a FIFA World Cup Stadium.
http://www.espnfc.us/fifa-world-cup/...nada?appsrc=sc

Few things, it's a long shot. Rice-Eccles would have to get seating up to 60,000. This would speed up the planned expansion. And if we are set for an olympics then the expansion will happen at the same time. Think the US will end up with 12 sites, probably 3 in Canada and 2 in Mexico. Still funny the US could put all the games here in nothing short of 70,000 seat stadiums, if you end up on a few college campuses.

[i-215]

The Salt Lake metro area is faaaaaaaar more interesting than the Tucson or Albuquerque metro areas. The ability for 2 million suburbanites to crush into downtown on TRAX for an event is really cool, and something neither of those other cities have.

Give SLC time. When I joined this board in 2001 (under another username), it seemed like nobody lived downtown. Today another 10-20k people have moved in, mostly downtown. Give it time. Give it time.

[twig]

Originally Posted by i-215

The Salt Lake metro area is faaaaaaaar more interesting than the Tucson or Albuquerque metro areas. The ability for 2 million suburbanites to crush into downtown on TRAX for an event is really cool, and something neither of those other cities have.

Give SLC time. When I joined this board in 2001 (under another username), it seemed like nobody lived downtown. Today another 10-20k people have moved in, mostly downtown. Give it time. Give it time.

No one is arguing that Salt Lake is more interesting than Tucson or Albuquerque. The original quote was talking about the size of downtown. If it wasn't for the church developing what they have so far then our downtown would be the size of downtown Tuscon or Albuquerque. And about as lively as downtown Tuscon or Albuquerque. I tend to agree with that also. Sure we may be in a more interesting Valley that's even more beautiful. But our downtown is mainly made up of the churches developments. And the mall they built and temple square. If it wasn't for any of those developments our downtown would be as dead at night as Tucson or Albuquerque. Only exception would be the Jazz stadium.
Nobody was saying anything about the metro. Or the interesting topography from any of those cities.

[delts145]

Let's give the secular/city government/and ten of thousands of newbies some credit. Salt Lake City Downtown and Proper has one of the singularly most attractive Main Libraries, City Halls, State Capitals, Public Safety Buildings, Natural History Museums, etc. in No. America. A brand new Theatre whose elegant presence at the street equals and or surpasses its peers anywhere on the continent. A nationally acclaimed and vibrant restaurant scene. Also, not to mention a performing arts scene that hits waaay above it's weight when compared to many capitals on the continent of similar or larger city and metro size. Not to mention a University of Utah, whose building program is and continues to be breakneck, even by Southern California standards.

[delts145]

I have to mention this, as there has been so much discussion as of late on how to deal with the homeless issue. As you can probably imagine it's a very big problem here in Los Angeles, particularly Central L.A. Aside from the serious nature of the problem I had to chuckle a little about something I saw on my way home from Century City this afternoon. Low and behold in Beverly Hills of all places, on the corner of Olympic and La Cienega, homeless tents had been pitched. Maybe now the issue is getting far enough West of Downtown L.A. that the elite won't be able to ignore the problem, now that it's knocking on their front door.

[bob rulz]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Probably right but that last comment is silly. Albuquerque is a fantastic city with great history and some pretty incredible architecture in its own right.

I don't mean to be too harsh on Albuquerque. Albuquerque has its charm, no doubt, but SLC is much nicer in my admittedly limited experience, and I would venture that SLC has developed a more vibrant downtown though again, admittedly very little experience.

[grasscom]

Originally Posted by delts145

Let's give the secular/government/and ten of thousands of newbies some credit. Salt Lake City Downtown and Proper has one of the singularly most attractive Main Libraries, City Halls, State Capitals, Public Safety Buildings, Natural History Museums, etc. in No. America. A brand new Theatre whose elegant presence at the street equals and or surpasses its peers anywhere on the continent. A nationally acclaimed and vibrant restaurant scene. Also, not to mention a performing arts scene that hits waaay above it's weight when compared to many capitals on the continent of similar or larger city and metro size. Not to mention a University of Utah, whose building program is and continues to be breakneck, even by Southern California standards.

A lot of those things you do once but they don't keep you coming back. A lot of those things aren't as interesting as you suggest. And to say our restaurant scene is nationally acclaimed is a joke. Most people outside of Utah or Mormons when ask where I'm from don't know a single thing about Utah except its where the Mormons reside. I can't tell you how many people I've ran into on business trips that don't even realize that Utah has mountains. Everyone thinks its just an extension of Nevada and Arizona. If people don't know that then how are we nationally acclaimed and vibrant restaurant scene? Especially when so many cities out there have a much better restaurant scene? Examples: Seattle/Denver/Austin/Las Vegas/Portland/Chicago/Milwaukee/Boston/Philadelphia/ and many others. The performing art scenes aren't close to being on the same levels of other capitals like Austin or Denver. The things you mentioned are all good things but I think its quite exaggerated and stretching things to prop up Salt Lake.

[Jiffy]

Originally Posted by bob rulz

I don't mean to be too harsh on Albuquerque. Albuquerque has its charm, no doubt, but SLC is much nicer in my admittedly limited experience, and I would venture that SLC has developed a more vibrant downtown though again, admittedly very little experience.

Not to mention I actually feel safe in Salt Lake. I cannot say the same about most of Albuquerque.