Quote:
Originally Posted by TRex
SEG entertainment district plan is an urban design failure and non starter for me. It is a longterm mistake if it goes forward as proposed.
Maintaining the city grid and block layout is fundamental to good urban design, where most of the development should be facing outward from the block to the street.
The SEG plan feels like a suburban mall mentality where you want to capture the people visiting the Delta Center and keep them inside.
It is better to think of the entire downtown as the best and most interesting entertainment district.
SEG should make the Delta Center an awesome venue and then correctly develop the blighted block to the east with the idea that it can stand alone and survive on its own in 30 years when the Delta Center moves to a new location. A mid block alley or street similar to Pierpont Ave or Edison St. would work well from 300 W to 200 W.
Burying 300 W is nonsense and misguided. Furthermore, I would restore the 200 W tunnel back to grade.
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All valid points except a few things:
The grid is already broken up. It doesn't exist. The Salt Palace has broken up the grid for over 50 years by cutting off 100 South between West Temple and 200 West. Speaking of 200 West, that portion of the grid is also broken up by the Salt Palace by the tunnel that forces zero ability to interact with the northern-portion of the block (specifically the mid-block area to South Temple). While this development doesn't seem to rectify the issues fully (and I'll wait to see my detailed renderings of the 200 West area to get a better understanding of how they'll handle that road), it still opens it up to pedestrians and vibrancy.
Beyond that, I guess I don't understand your comment about creating a suburban mall mentality. I feel City Creek is far more representative of that as it's actually mostly an indoor mall. Nothing in this development is close to that. If anything, this rights the biggest wrong about these blocks: it's a dead area through and through. It connects the Delta Center to the rest of downtown, which it decidedly is not at the moment - and hasn't been since its construction.
You say it's a non-starter yet still move forward with the idea that SEG should handle it this way or that way, conceding that the area is is does not work. That to me makes the idea it's a non-starter a misnomer. I think even those who are critical of the idea can at least concede it's still vastly better than the status quo in terms of creating a more pedestrian-friendly area.
As I've said multiple times: this isn't going to be perfect. There's certainly going to be ways that we all think can be done much better than the final results will show - but as is the case with City Creek Center, which isn't the perfect development either, it's a monumental step in the right direction and that alone makes me question how it could be a non-starter.
300 West is NOT pedestrian friendly. Like at al. You either close it down to traffic entirely or you bury it. But really, the only pedestrian-friendly street downtown right now is Main (which I actually support closing off to traffic). That isn't a coincidence. Salt Lake's streets suck. 300 West is maybe the worst offender downtown because it's treated as a state highway and completely devoid of walkability for the most part.
If I had faith Salt Lake could work with UDOT to improve 300 West and make it more pedestrian-friendly, I absolutely would agree with that route over burying that portion. But just look at State Street. How many years have we seen reports released by the city about making it more pedestrian friendly?
Remember when they were going to run a trolly down it?
All talk. That's been the last 20+ years when it comes to making downtown more inviting to pedestrians.
So, again, we're looking at an option where the choices are the current 300 West landscape or actually doing something so that it isn't a pedestrian nightmare around the Delta Center.
Especially if they're going to work to bring more people downtown outside Jazz/NHL games.
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