Major downtown highway could get tunnel treatment as part of new sports district plan
https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...=snd-autopilot
By Robert Gehrke
| May 30, 2024, 12:00 p.m.
| Updated: 2:00 p.m.
A vision of Ryan Smith and his Smith Entertainment Group’s new downtown sports and entertainment district includes tall, gleaming buildings, lining a long promenade leading right to the front door of the Delta Center, the home of the Jazz and Utah’s new professional hockey team.
Missing from the near-futuristic cityscape is 300 West, also known as John Stockton Drive. The six-lane state highway that moves roughly 16,000 cars and trucks per day appears submerged underneath the promenade in renderings presented at a city council meeting earlier this month.
Smith’s group is at least considering burying the heavily-traffic route between North Temple and 100 South, and using the area above the tunnel to install the new pedestrian mall and entertainment district depicted in the rendering of the district.
Smith’s representatives have been careful to emphasize that they are preliminary proposals and not the final product. A spokesperson for SEG reiterated that point when asked to comment on plans for 300 West.
But sinking the state highway is more than a fleeting notion, as earlier this month SEG’s planners were gathering data on the feasibility of the concept.
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“Every large city has to deal with this and there are less expensive ways to do it and more expensive ways to do it,” he said. “If the sky’s the limit and you don’t have a budget constraint, sure, put the heavy vehicles underground and remove that conflict.”
But in terms of opening up the west side of the city, he said a better proposal is the Rio Grande Plan’s vision of burying the railroad tracks that run west of downtown, creating better traffic flow and freeing up 75 acres of developable space.
“To me, those are much more impactful,” he said. “If you’re going to invest that kind of money, that’s where I’d put it.”
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Interesting comment at the end there about the Rio Grande!