Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[airhero]

A discussion about Vivint's design and engagement is completely on topic. If it gets a little out of hand thats fine. I don't understand all this constant sensitivity. If you're gonna leave just leave. No need for the long bitter goodbyes. Now we apparently have people creating accounts just so they can say they are done with this thread.

[Jiffy]

I love reading this thread! haha such a mess but so much fun to read!

I like the Vivant arena, only been there once! Its nothing spectacular but it was nice! I agree it could use some more street engagement. I wish that would be a requirement from the city, If your going to have a development that has a large draw of people from the suburbs into the city then they should be required to create a great pedestrian street engagement experience. Right now I agree it might as well have been built out in the boonies because its not much different of an experience.

[delts145]

^^^
^^^
LOL, So true Airhero. Also, as far as the discussion about Vivint goes, thank you Comrade. We don't agree on the exterior design of the Arena, but the discussion definitely was helpful. We can all agree that more needs to be done with the immediate surroundings, including the block itself. I particularly like the idea of incorporating the use of the empty corners. There could be some great upscale structures on the corners that easily blend with and enhance Vivint's appearance. At the same time the structures could engage the street at curbside, while also creating a vibrant inner corridor that faces the Arena itself. This would be a big plus for Vivint, even if the upgraded future of Gateway and projects like the Richie group continue to take shape.

[airhero]

Originally Posted by EPdesign

Now, as for the old public safety building, good thing there is finally some movement on this. I was think about it the other day as I drove by.

Yeah I'm excited for this one. It's quite close to where I live. And it's across the street from the Big Lots. I'm hoping for the end of Big Lots in the near future, so anything that might spur more development in the vicinity could help with that. It's the second most ridiculous thing in the downtown area, the first being Carl's Jr. of course. I've really wanted to post a photo tour of 200 South describing the history of all the buildings and detailing current and planned developments along the corridor, but I lack the motivation to get started.

EDIT: I want to point out that I think 200 South is pretty awful and has been very blighted and ugly for a long time, but it has potential and is starting to see good things happen, which is why I want to do the photo tour, while there is still blight, but also new exciting developments happening.

[Clark0501]

What is going on with Regent Street downtown? It does not look like anything has changed in 6 months. Fireside Pizza is the only restaurant that is even open and there is a fried chicken restaurant that has said coming soon for months. Does anyone know what is going on and what other restaurants are coming in there?

Any update on The Gateway and new tenants coming there? Has construction started on Dave & Busters?

[airhero]

^^^There is a "dessert studio" called Last Course coming to Regent Street. I think their plans are still under review but I wouldn't be surprised if they start work on it within the next month. No idea what is going on with the Nashville chicken place. I don't think any other restaurants are planned as of now but I could be wrong. After Last Course I think there are five spaces left to fill. Maybe four. I thought Cubby's was opening a place but I figure they would have done it by now.

Dave and Busters is in a similar position as Last Course. It is definitely happening but the plans are still under review. I would imagine it's nearly ready to get the go ahead.

There is a restaurant called MidiCi coming to the Gateway. It's a pizza chain based in California and they're opening up new restaurants everywhere. There's already one in Orem and it's coming soon to SLC on their website. I'm not sure what space they are going in.

I'm sure there's more.

[ajiuO]

So are these permanent structures now? They ushualy take them down right after ODR... they just left them this year.

Seriously. Why don’t they just expand the salt palace. That shit is ghetto.

[bob rulz]

Originally Posted by twig

Sorry Delts but once again you are wrong. IMO the vivant center is a very unimaginative block of concrete that would fit in so much better in some suburb than our city center. But I guess it just reflects the type of attitude our city developers and leaders really think about our city. The only ones who can do anything awesome in this city is the Mormon church.
I guess I set my standards too high for this city, when I take a step back I realize that this really isn't much of a city at all, its so small and its just a large sprawling mess. Its almost embarrassing. The only thing good this city has going for it is the mountains.

Yeah because telling someone that they're wrong is really going to accomplish something. We're arguing the architectural value of an NBA arena, there is no right or wrong, only opinions. Telling people that they're wrong is stupid and accomplishes nothing.

And anyway, I know a lot of people - not just those oh so horrible suburban-loving Mormons - who really like this city. Fine, you have your opinion, but with all due respect, you have 7 posts on this forum and almost all of them are nothing but complaining about how much Salt Lake sucks....so, what exactly are you doing here?

Originally Posted by GBurrow

Cowboy Partners is building an apartment complex between the S-Line between and Winco. My hope is that buildings are built all along the
perimeter and sandwich the parking in the middle of the development.

The link below includes a site plan and renderings for the apartment complex. It appears the Cowboy partners is proposing to build 95 town-homes instead of the apartments now. The renderings are in the latest minutes for the South Salt Lake Planning commission.

http://archive.sltrib.com/article.ph...i-state=dialog

http://www.southsaltlakecity.com/upl...PC_Meeting.pdf

Ok, back to development talk...

You're right, I was misremembering the exact details of the rendering. But I knew I wasn't totally off in my memory. There's still a huge parking lot separating the apartments and the WinCo. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the WinCo up to the apartments? If I lived there, I would certainly prefer to walk right out my door into a grocery store, instead of walking across a huge parking lot to a grocery store. I wouldn't be shocked if people drove from their parking garage spot to the WinCo parking lot because of that if they don't need more than a handful of items.

[airhero]

Just because there is nothing over ten stories going up doesn't mean there is nothing happening. I think all the complaining has less to do with nothing happening in this city and more to do with people trying to troll or pass their own personal misery on everyone else. Or more likely, they have absurd expectations. I've had a lot of fun in SLC this summer. If you're not enjoying the city maybe you need to make some changes. Salt Lake isn't and probably will never be a large city, so stop expecting it to be.

Just a visual example of the recently completed (purple), under construction (greens), and planned (blue) projects in and around downtown and Sugar House:



It's a lot.

[airportvids]

Originally Posted by twig

Well have you seen the developments in our city? There is nothing to do on here but complain! I want to see Salt Lake get something great but sometimes it feels as if we are regressing. I mean look what happened to the OR.... Also our downtown sorta sucks. Its so sad that you can easily add all of our top 20 tallest buildings into the Denver skyline and they wouldn't even notice there were new buildings there. Its just infill to them. I know we aren't ever going to be as big or grand as Denver but why can't we just get at least one project built in this era that we can be proud of? I do want to see downtown Salt Lake become something really special... but why does it have to feel as if nothing will happen in my lifetime? So sorry if I'm complaining a lot, but last I checked that's just about all anyone does on this page with the exception of a couple of people.

Spot on.

[ajiuO]

Originally Posted by GBurrow

Cowboy Partners is building an apartment complex between the S-Line between and Winco. My hope is that buildings are built all along the
perimeter and sandwich the parking in the middle of the development.

The link below includes a site plan and renderings for the apartment complex. It appears the Cowboy partners is proposing to build 95 town-homes instead of the apartments now. The renderings are in the latest minutes for the South Salt Lake Planning commission.

http://archive.sltrib.com/article.ph...i-state=dialog

http://www.southsaltlakecity.com/upl...PC_Meeting.pdf

I wish Cowboy would stop building. They have the worst building standards in Utah. Even worse then Ivory Homes. My sister lived in one of their apartment building down town. The place was only 3 years old and everything was falling apart. The floors were all squeaky and you could feel them moving. Cowboy properties is currently building the ghetto slums of the future... I guess South Salt Lake is a nice fit though.

I rode the S-line today. I was happy to see many more people then the last time I rode. I also like all of the development going on along the s-line. I really wish they would tear down those scary housing projects between 400 & 500 east along the s-Line and build some nice mixed income apartments. I would be really hesitent to live in any of the new apartments going up next to that current gehto.

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by ajiuO

So are these permanent structures now? They ushualy take them down right after ODR... they just left them this year.

Seriously. Why don’t they just expand the salt palace. That shit is ghetto.

My guess is they left it up for Doterra on the 5th. Attendance 27k.

https://www.visitsaltlake.com/salt-p...eeting-events/

I doubt an expansion would be justified until we get a cch.

[asies1981]

Post on the Centro Civico Development, it passed the planning commission last week.

[ajiuO]

Originally Posted by Liberty Wellsian

My guess is they left it up for Doterra on the 5th. Attendance 27k.

https://www.visitsaltlake.com/salt-p...eeting-events/

I doubt an expansion would be justified until we get a cch.

If we need to have tents that occupie half of a city block up for a quarter of the year, perhaps an expansion would be justified... but then again this was the last ODR, so perhaps not. I’m pretty sure the CCH is dead. Talk of that pretty much stopped the minut ODR pulled out. I bet what’s his face who owns APS lost all his backing. Just like every other ambitious beveloper in the area.

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by ajiuO

If we need to have tents that occupie half of a city block up for a quarter of the year, perhaps an expansion would be justified... but then again this was the last ODR, so perhaps not. I’m pretty sure the CCH is dead. Talk of that pretty much stopped the minut ODR pulled out. I bet what’s his face who owns APS lost all his backing. Just like every other ambitious beveloper in the area.

A CCH would only have 800-1000 rooms. The number of conventions is actually more critical to its success than a few huge ones. Even the smallest conventions would likely fill it. The problem is not OR leaving. The problem is that there is a better return on investment for hoteliers to invest elsewhere. Further many of them have assets in our CSA that could be hurt by a cch.

The Salt Palace needs it, the city needs it, the state needs it, but the hotel industry doesn't need it.

[Always Sunny in SLC]

I have been lurking around here since 2005 or 2006 when the LDS church first revealed their plans for the Crossroads/ZCMI mall redevelopment. The reason I bring that up is because every time I think of it I am grateful whomever had the ear of the Mormon church convinced them to change course. With the general mood of this forum it might be a good time for all to know/remember that so we can realize that CCC really has given us a good foundation for the rebirth of downtown into a more urban/walkable community. I am a reasonable optimist by nature and because of that I am general excited and positive about the future of downtown. One reason I am optimistic is because the principles of urbanism are becoming more and more accepted and advocated each year by people, government and business. While our development is far from perfect, we are nowhere near the despair or the 60's-90's where downtowns were systematically destroyed and people didn't value, by and large, urbanist principles. As a side note, I tried to find a picture of the original plans by the LDS church with the enclosed mall and I could not, but if anyone can find it, it is a great visual reminder of what was avoided.

[scottharding]

I expect they're keeping the tents for the conventions that usually book the arena, which is of course, currently closed. Usana, DoTerra, and all these MLM's do their big tent revival conventions every year and they usually use the arena.

Also, I'm sorry to bring up the arena again. Let's be done talking about that.

[Comrade]

The worst thing going about the worst area of South Salt Lake is trashy yards and freeway noise.

[scottharding]

Worth pointing out that Salt Lake, and all of Utah for that matter, does not have Ghettos. We may have poorer, more run-down neighborhoods. But if you think what Cowboy Properties is building is a slum, you haven't seen what some people live in in other cities in this country. Not to say anything about other countries.

And btw, I'm with you Liberty Wellsian, on people's attitudes towards "others" whatever makes them stand apart from some unofficially agreed upon "norm."
Anyone who wants to live in a completely white-washed, cookie cutter, conform or be shunned kind of community need only go an hour or so south. Provo is your fatherland.

[dmand]

Originally Posted by scottharding

Worth pointing out that Salt Lake, and all of Utah for that matter, does not have Ghettos. We may have poorer, more run-down neighborhoods. But if you think what Cowboy Properties is building is a slum, you haven't seen what some people live in in other cities in this country. Not to say anything about other countries.

And btw, I'm with you Liberty Wellsian, on people's attitudes towards "others" whatever makes them stand apart from some unofficially agreed upon "norm."
Anyone who wants to live in a completely white-washed, cookie cutter, conform or be shunned kind of community need only go an hour or so south. Provo is your fatherland.

You literally just described just about 98% of all cities in Utah, there's no need to go an hour south for that. The Salt Lake county/valley is full of cities you just described!

Needless to say, Salt Lake Forum-The only ones who can seem to start their own civil war!

Also note: We may not be as bad as some other cities or even most cities in some areas, but I would definitely count Rio Grande as a ghetto, and its one that shocks many people who visit our city.

Saying that I believe the Cowboy properties are far from ghetto, but at the same time I can see that they don't always care much for their overall value that their projects bring to the city, they could step up their game a little.