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Originally Posted by i-215
Not this again. I lived 30 of my 40 years on this planet IN SALT LAKE COUNTY. Back off!
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I'm not trying to be flippant or rude but I don't care. You have no skin in the game. You don't live here anymore. It's not you that has to deal with the future of Salt Lake
City losing both the Jazz and this new NHL team, on top of already losing the Bees, to the suburbs. And if the Salt Lake area were to land a MLB team? What incentive now does the LHM Group have in entering discussions with the city on the ballpark after they basically told Ryan Smith to get lost? That is cutting off your nose to spite your face. But hey, maybe losing the MLB to Draper or wherever wouldn't be that big of a deal either, right?
As a resident of Salt Lake, someone who pays property taxes and pretty much does most my shopping within Salt Lake, I have that skin in the game. My priority as a Salt Laker is to my city first. And I've seen Salt Lake where the downtown is NOT a destination. That's how it was for a good portion of my childhood. You only went downtown for two things: a concert or the Jazz (maybe ZCMI or Crossroads if we weren't feeling Cottonwood) and the kicker here is that your dismissiveness and willingness to just let Ryan Smith go build south will take two of those options off the table entirely. You have just eliminated one of the biggest traffic drivers to downtown by letting Smith go build a new state of the art arena down south.
If you would have actually listened to the citizen comments last night, you would have seen a significant amount of business owners downtown supporting this development. They, even more than me, have skin in the game. Now ask yourself why they would be supportive of it if they felt their livelihood wasn't tied to the success and vibrancy of downtown?
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Originally Posted by i-215
Utah is not a dumpy state. There are GOOD odds (considering most of my family CONTINUE TO LIVE in SALT LAKE COUNTY) that in the not-to-distant future, I may live there again, and have to endure the consequences of these decisions.
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Cool. Then when you live in Salt Lake City, you can be so dismissive of this project.
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Originally Posted by i-215
The tribalism ("You are not REALLY one of us") is tired, Comrade. Seriously.
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It's not tribalism, it's truth. It's easy for you to dismiss the idea because you're not the one who has to face the consequences of a dead downtown. Even if you move back to Salt Lake County and decide live in West Jordan, the impact isn't going to be the same.
We've seen Salt Lake County flourish despite Salt Lake's downtown being a ghost town. We saw it all through the 70s, 80s and even 90s. It wasn't until the Olympics, and the investment we saw from that, as well as the LDS Church, that Salt Lake started turning into a destination for the valley again.
But that's not guaranteed. Especially when Salt Lake continues to battle a very suburban mindset. The whole Wasatch Front is suburban-oriented. Downtown Salt Lake City is still not nearly as vibrant as other regional centers because of how unique our culture is here. The drivers for downtown, though, are cultural, commercial and entertainment. The commercial will never change. But that's pretty much what downtown was for a long period of its history: a commercial hub of 9-5 and then it was a ghost town. Sure you' had the Jazz out there on an island west of Main Street. But that was really it.
You open The Point as being the entertainment destination of the Wasatch Front and downtown will lose what has ushered in its revitalization these last 20 years.
And that will then start impacting people development. Who wants to live in a dead downtown? Especially when they can go live out in Draper and commute to The Point for all their entertainment options?
Like I said, then don't be surprised if in ten years, when the Utah Symphony starts discussing the needs for renovating Abravanel Hall, and now renovation is more expensive because a decade has gone by and the building is even in worse shape, the county just decides to build the new hall out where all the entertainment options are flocking.
It's easy to think I'm being hyperbolic. But we've seen first-hand Salt Lake lose out already on the Bees. We've seen Salt Lake lose out on RSL. We've seen Salt Lake lose out on the aquarium. We almost saw Salt Lake lose out on the Broadway theater. It was almost a lock in Sandy before their leadership sunk it.
But The Point ain't Sandy. It's got state investment. If Ryan Smith decides to build out there, it'll shift the whole paradigm of entertainment along the Wasatch Front.
Why do you think the city is so invested in this development? Don't you think they might have an idea of what the prospects of Salt Lake losing the Jazz and this NHL team, along with all the other events that come with the Delta Center means for downtown? Don't you think they realize their limitations and the fact that, for 50 years, that area of downtown has been entirely disconnected from the heart of the city?
There was a councilperson on a podcast a few weeks ago, and I can't remember who it was, who said Salt Lake flat-out sucks at visionary development. And it's true. How many times since you have been on this forum has Salt Lake released its downtown plan that showcases these grand boulevards and urban developments?
This was from 2014.
I want you to go look at the HUB portion of this PDF. How much progress has Salt Lake made at transforming the Rio Grande area? It's been ten years - even longer really - and how many proposals have come and gone about redeveloping that area into something significant? There's even a page on Block 85 that remains vacant.
I don't know why anyone would expect Salt Lake to be able to do even half of what is being proposed without SEG. And I say that confidently because they haven't already.
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Originally Posted by i-215
So, The Gateway ain't working?
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The Gateway has always been in a period transition ever since it was built. But I promise you, Gateway would be the first impacted if the Jazz and this NHL team left downtown because they do a significant amount of business during game days (and it'll now double with the NHL team - as there will be 82 home games between the Jazz and the NHL).
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Originally Posted by i-215
CCC ain't working?
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Never mentioned City Creek outside saying that the LDS Church invested in downtown with its creation.
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Originally Posted by i-215
Main Street revitalization ain't working?
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Didn't mention Main Street. That's not the area we're discussing. We're talking about western downtown.
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Originally Posted by i-215
Revitalization of the 400 S corridor ain't working?
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Again, I think you're confused. The area we're talking about is on the western side of downtown.
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Originally Posted by i-215
Please clarify what "ain't working", Comrade.
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I spelled it out pretty clearly. We're talking about this specific area of downtown. It is not working. The western part of downtown is embarrassing. And the kicker is that we're not even talking the status quo here. That was my bad. We're talking worse than the status quo because the perspective you're coming from ends with the Jazz and this NHL team leaving western downtown. But in your weird logic, that will somehow be better overall. Do you think The Ritchie Group would be excited about losing the Delta Center next to their West Quarter development? We already know The Ritchie Group is on board with this development. Would they really support it if they didn't feel it helped that entire region of downtown?
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Originally Posted by i-215
Because, without massive government subsidy the actual commercial real estate market can't bear it.
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So? Your answer is to let Salt Lake lose the Jazz and the NHL and the biggest indoor concert venue (that's actually used for big shows) in the state? And you think downtown won't be negatively impacted by that, especially conceding that it's impossible to invest in multi-project development that have an overall massive impact on the region? We can continue building four-to-five story residential cookie-cutter apartments but that's not going to keep Salt Lake thriving.
Then you lose the Jazz and the NHL and the concert venues and then possibly the MLB and maybe even the symphony because Salt Lake is becoming less and less a destination as everything shifts out south - and guess what? All that investment and vibrancy that you've spent 20 year building ... it all dries up. Because people don't see the need to come downtown anymore.
It's not a destination now. The Point is. That's where everything starts to go.
And downtown Salt Lake starts to resemble Los Angeles where it has commercial buildings and a couple cultural centers but it's mostly just 9-5 again. The difference, of course, is that LA has LA Live and is a much larger downtown core. But we've been here before. Our grandparents saw Salt Lake City go from THE destination to an afterthought. It can happen again. Especially in the new world of work from home, where there isn't as big of a need for a 30 story office tower. You can turn those into housing, but as we've seen, Salt Lake isn't known for massive amounts of residential high-rises anymore.
We already have seen the Silicone Slopes shift south. We know that the fastest growing cities are in Northern Utah County (including Lehi where, gosh, Ryan Smith is from). How does Salt Lake compete with that if you're not willing to take opportunities like this? You can't. We know they can't because they haven't been able to.
I've said multiple times in the past that Salt Lake can't just rely on the LDS Church for its major development. That's not sustainable. And here we have SEG ready to kick start a revitalization of an area of downtown that has largely been ignored, and you think, as a non-resident, it's perfectly fine to just shrug and say, "never mind" knowing the potential consequences that can have on downtown Salt Lake.
I just disagree with that mentality.
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Originally Posted by i-215
Remember stories of when the downtown malls opened and Main Street died?
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The downtown malls opened because Main Street was already dying. It was an effort to keep up with the suburbs as downtown was hemorrhaging that type of traffic. With the addition of Crossroads, it actually kinda slowed the decline of downtown and Main Street. I mentioned already that the only reasons to go downtown in the 90s was to either attend a show at the Delta Center or hang out at the malls.
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Originally Posted by i-215
Then remember when The Gateway opened and the two downtown malls died?
Then remember when CCC opened and The Gateway started dying?
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You're proving my point. If Salt Lake refuses to adapt, that vibrancy dies. The malls didn't kill Main Street. Losing everything to the suburbs, and the mega malls out south, did. The city, along with the LDS Church, opened the mall to combat that shift. Did it work? That's debatable but what would Salt Lake have gained without the malls? Is your argument that Main Street would have been far more vibrant without the construction of the malls? Here's Main Street in 1974, a year before ZCMI opened and six years before Crossroads. It doesn't look very vibrant to me:
Yes, over time the downtown malls needed to be reenvisioned. But what vibrancy does City Creek actually create for all of Main Street? Wasn't the biggest issue with City Creek that it still took people off Main Street and moved 'em into the middle of each block ... just like the malls did?
As I said initially, it's never going to be perfect. But City Creek is still better than what existed there before. It's the same with Gateway. Gateway has reinvented itself too. It needed to to survive. That's how downtowns work. But what you're putting out there is doing nothing and I'm sorry, that isn't reinventing anything. In fact, it's now directly impacting the city because doing nothing will result in the city losing the Jazz, this NHL team and a major driver into downtown. And that impacts ALL of downtown. Not just the western part. All those businesses, including the new bars at Gateway, count on that traffic.
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Originally Posted by i-215
There are only so many retail dollars to go around in the region. It's why Rocky Anderson rightly opposed the 5600 West Megamall (funny enough, you and I were on opposite sides of that issue 20 years ago). Building more commercial doesn't generate enough new sales to cover the new square footage. A lot of it is just cannibalized from older retail. (Hence why cities often put their shopping right on the border of an adjacent city).
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Salt Lake continues to grow and adapt and every new development has forced other developments to adjust to survive - and they've done it. I see no reason to believe that won't happen here, especially with a new residential high-rise, hotel and the fact we'd be keeping the Jazz + adding 41 more home games to help with traffic. That will only help bolster downtown and continue to make it a destination to travel and live.
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Originally Posted by i-215
The reason why we don't have additional development on that block is because, without subsidy, the market won't bear it. Don't think there haven't been ambitious around the world who have considered it and even approached a commercial bank to explore the feasibility. But the bank comes back and says "no," and the project dies.
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And the only reason we have the Gateway is because the federal government subsidized the clean up of that area through their Brownfield project. It wasn't going to happen on its own. And the only reason we have City Creek is because the LDS Church built it. It wasn't going to happen on its own. Yes, the LDS Church funded the project but it shows how impactful it was to downtown.
And so has been the Gateway. Even if it's not the best of what we had always envisioned, it's still infinitely better than what existed on that land before it was built and more impressively my friend, this development will help bridge the gap between Main and the Gateway by opening up a western part of downtown that has been completely divided from the rest of the city since really the original Salt Palace was built in the 1960s.
But that was over 50 years ago and the same issues that impacted that area of downtown then, still impact it now. This is our opportunity to rectify that problem and finally unite the two downtown areas.
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Originally Posted by i-215
And maybe a TIF-style development like this will be the right answer.
But two tunnels, loss of easement, and haphazard internally-facing development that kills traffic on the public sidewalks is BAD DESIGN. The kind of BAD DESIGN you and others on this message board educated me on over the past 20 years! (It's heartbreaking to see the about face.)
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There is no loss of easement. SEG already told the city last night that the plaza will be open to the public at all times. But even if that was the case, which it's not, how big of an impact would that have anyway? Because I drive down 300 West around the Delta Center and outside Jazz games, the area is dead. No one is out there chillin' or hanging out. It's a complete dead zone. In fact, I'll go one-step further: it's an embarrassment. It's embarrassing that this area exists so close to the heart of downtown. And it's an embarrassment that after 33 years, the city still hasn't been able to find enough commitment to invest in that area beyond low-rise apartments.
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Originally Posted by i-215
The city/county/state stand up for themselves, and say, "Ryan, if you want access to the money, streets, land you are asking for — you gotta do better. This first draft is ROUGH."
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They disagree with you and so do I. I think the first draft is pretty exciting.
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Originally Posted by i-215
And then list firm but reasonable expectations he needs to me. His job is not to make SLC a great city (you can't outsource good planning). His job is to make money (as it should be). The city/county/state and residents need to set the expectations. So far it looks like everyone is letting him lead.
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And that's the rub: it's Salt Lake asking Ryan Smith for his help. Not the other way around. Smith was content relocating the Jazz and this NHL team out south and I'm sure he'd be content saying, "I'm not interested with these demands". But if you watched the SEG presentation, you would see that they were mindful of what the council was asking - and they've already aggressively supported the need to keep Abravanel Hall if the county determines they want it part of the project.
What I think? I think you're gonna find every reason to hate this project. We're already seeing it. You spent a lot of energy drawing a redline on Abravanel Hall and now it appears that's likely to remain part of the project and you're redrawing a new line over something you don't like. You just don't want this to go through and I guess that's fine but again, you're not the one who has to potentially face the consequences of a downtown that takes a significant hit if Smith just ups and bolts for the suburbs.
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Originally Posted by i-215
Let's let Ryan screw around with one block at a time before we "Sugarhole" the symphony hall site.
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I have infinitely more confidence in Ryan Smith than you do, I guess. But I'm not going to create scenarios in my head just to support some theory.
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Originally Posted by i-215
Rocky is like dynamite. Destructive in the wrong hands (anyone remember the Rocky v. Hannity "debate" debacle?). But placed in the right places, Rocky did stuff done. Which is why we have a great Main Street and not a dead Megamall on 5600 West.
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Rocky had eight years to commit to some level of development in that area of downtown. I have defended Rocky on a lot of things but his aggression here is misplaced and his tenure as mayor is an example of why on multiple fronts. 1) again, he didn't do a damn thing about helping with vibrancy in that area outside killing the western mall that was originally planned out by the airport (good on him for that) and 2) he watched as downtown lost RSL and the stadium to the suburbs. I don't blame Rocky at all but he tried to work the RDA system to get funding for the stadium then so it's kind of funny he's up in arms over it now.
But that just proves my point. Salt Lake lost out on the stadium nearly 20 years ago. The land Rocky was willing to subsidize all the way back then was a vacant parking lot right on Main Street. A perfect location for the stadium. And we're still waiting for the full potential of that site. We're starting to get some development down that way but it's still not vibrant. It's still detached from downtown. Better than it was, but who knows how it would have developed over the last 20 years if RSL built its stadium there?
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Originally Posted by i-215
TL;dr Comrade, I'm not 100% anti Ryan Smith. I just want to see the city step up and demand good urban design principles. And this current draft is Crossroads Plaza 2.0 (sans roof). It sucks royally. And I hope deep down that even with your rightful enthusiasm for the project, you do feel a bit concerned with its current design.
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You're not just showing a bit of concern. You're outright being negative to this project and acting like it shouldn't happen.
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That ain't right.
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