Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[Comrade]

It'll never be urban on State Street solely because of Utah's bad street design. The street is just too wide, and too busy, for anything walkable and urban to develop. State literally feels like a highway, and would be a highway for 90% of US cities, going straight down the center of the city. Unless the city does a massive redevelopment, where they narrow the street considerably and bring up a trolley line, State is never going to be walkable.

That's the big downside to Salt Lake's street system. Most streets just aren't built for walkability. The only one is Main, which was heavily redone to allow for that type of movement. Most every other street downtown is just too wide. I mean, what makes a neighborhood area thrive is the ability to cross back and forth to all the shops without the hassle.

That's just not practical on State - especially the areas just directly South of downtown.

[JMK]

additional view of central 9th lofts

http://www.bowenstudios.com/residential

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by JMK

additional view of central 9th lofts

http://www.bowenstudios.com/residential

Cool. Reminds me of this project completed in Denver a few years ago. http://denverinfill.com/blog/2013/08...al-update.html. The Denver project is a 42-unit apartment building and this is the side elevation, but still, fairly similar architecturally.

[bob rulz]

Originally Posted by Comrade

It'll never be urban on State Street solely because of Utah's bad street design. The street is just too wide, and too busy, for anything walkable and urban to develop. State literally feels like a highway, and would be a highway for 90% of US cities, going straight down the center of the city. Unless the city does a massive redevelopment, where they narrow the street considerably and bring up a trolley line, State is never going to be walkable.

That's the big downside to Salt Lake's street system. Most streets just aren't built for walkability. The only one is Main, which was heavily redone to allow for that type of movement. Most every other street downtown is just too wide. I mean, what makes a neighborhood area thrive is the ability to cross back and forth to all the shops without the hassle.

That's just not practical on State - especially the areas just directly South of downtown.

It's true that State St. is very wide and highway-esque, but get some BRT down the middle and some bike lanes, and that could help a lot. I wouldn't expect that to happen for a decade or more, and it may not be "urban", but that could also get people to stop treating it like a highway.

And even if it's not possible to make it truly urban like you say, that doesn't mean we shouldn't build urban developments along it, or that there can't be urbanized nodes at points along the way. Wide streets may make it harder to be truly "urban", but that doesn't make it automatically un-walkable.

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by Comrade

It'll never be urban on State Street solely because of Utah's bad street design. The street is just too wide, and too busy, for anything walkable and urban to develop. State literally feels like a highway, and would be a highway for 90% of US cities, going straight down the center of the city. Unless the city does a massive redevelopment, where they narrow the street considerably and bring up a trolley line, State is never going to be walkable.

That's the big downside to Salt Lake's street system. Most streets just aren't built for walkability. The only one is Main, which was heavily redone to allow for that type of movement. Most every other street downtown is just too wide. I mean, what makes a neighborhood area thrive is the ability to cross back and forth to all the shops without the hassle.

That's just not practical on State - especially the areas just directly South of downtown.

The city needs to get more aggressive in creating intra-block streets. Two such streets that I would like to see put in now are to continue Market Street through the squatters block and another connecting 400 South to Pierpont at about 140 West. After doing that I would like to see them rezone the portions of the squatters block that are south of the New Market Street and or west of 140 West to D-1. I think that would create a real nice entertainment district.



I would like to see the empty blocks diced up even further. 6 - 9 blocks. Six seems like it would be right for the North Temple 3rd West block. The 400 South Main block could be split into 9, that can be our Portland block.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by bob rulz

It's true that State St. is very wide and highway-esque, but get some BRT down the middle and some bike lanes, and that could help a lot. I wouldn't expect that to happen for a decade or more, and it may not be "urban", but that could also get people to stop treating it like a highway.

And even if it's not possible to make it truly urban like you say, that doesn't mean we shouldn't build urban developments along it, or that there can't be urbanized nodes at points along the way. Wide streets may make it harder to be truly "urban", but that doesn't make it automatically un-walkable.

I would turn State St. into our own version of Park Avenue. Widen the sidewalks and landscape the median. Park Avenue is slightly wider than State.

[airportvids]

Originally Posted by bob rulz

Surprise surprise, another negative post from airportvids. Personally I don't think 9th & 9th needs huge, 6-8+ story apartment buildings. And there's a major lack of mid-sized housing in the city. Not everybody wants to live in huge apartment buildings.

Surprise surprise, I, and I alone am the one that gets called out for posting negative posts. Sorry, I forgot that only Comrade and Stenar are the only two on here who have a gold pass to post negative posts on here and that's ok. In fact, I wouldn't even be surprise had my comment had been posted by Comrade you would be kissing his ass in agreement. Gotta love the double standers on here.
My bad, I was just simply jumping on the negative bandwagon that Comrade and Stenar have been on for YEARS with every single development that has come out.

[DCRes]

Originally Posted by ajiuO

I believe the library and museum just underwent a major renovation... at least on the inside. I wouldn’t be upset if they tore the triad Center down... although I think that building could be dramatically improved just by replacing the glass.

I think at one point I heard that the Plaza would be converted in to student housing. Not sure if they plan on reclading it or not. I wouldn’t be hurt if that thing were to be imploded though.

I think that about half of the Plaza is already student housing. I remember delivery pizza there in 2009 and the top half floors you had to have a badge to get into because it was LDS Business College housing.

[airhero]

Since we're on the subject of State Street, for anyone who hasn't seen the most recent presentation material for Life on State, it can be accessed here:

https://www.lifeonstate.com/presentations

Be sure to click on the last link, Executive Committee Meeting #2.

A few examples of preliminary ideas from the pdf, starting with the cheapest, ending with the most expensive:

Minor:


Side Running Dedicated Transit Lane:


Center Running Dedicated Transit Lane:


Boulevard:


There are a lot more in the pdf. I can't believe they are exploring putting bike lanes on State, but apparently almost 90% of people at the workshop wanted them.

[airhero]

Originally Posted by Stenar

I like the Triad Center, church museum & library. Dee's and Plaza can go, though.

I can see wanting to keep the library and museum buildings, but I for one don't find them that special, and they interfere with the idea I have in my head for view corridors of the temple. And replacing the glass on the Triad seems like a must, in addition to a few minor improvements at the street level, and probably isn't prohibitively expensive. The current brown reflective glass gives a sterile feel.

[ThePusherMan]

Love the Life On State project. The street is so massive that there is a lot of oportunity to make it more of a complete street. As someone who bikes a lot, Bike lanes on State are a no brainer for me. There is plenty of room. A lot of people use the large shoulder as a bike lane already but it's one of the few streets in SLC that I don't feel comfortable biking on.

[Stenar]

Originally Posted by airhero

I can see wanting to keep the library and museum buildings, but I for one don't find them that special, and they interfere with the idea I have in my head for view corridors of the temple. And replacing the glass on the Triad seems like a must, in addition to a few minor improvements at the street level, and probably isn't prohibitively expensive. The current brown reflective glass gives a sterile feel.

I don't think the library/museum are special at all, but not at all terrible, either.

[Ironweed]

Originally Posted by Liberty Wellsian

This is probably the biggest issue facing the region right now.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...lifornias.html

Thanks Liberty. Mr Grow is spot on. Read the comments section. It illustrates the brain dead, lack of thoughts that exists in much of Utah. There were a couple of sensible comments.

As far as State St. Why not put a street car down to at least Murray? I'm not a fan of bus unless the engines are electric or natural gas.

[bob rulz]

I like all of those proposals airhero. Of course, the last one is my favorite, but I would also be shocked if it ever happened. Any of the others would be satisfactory.

Originally Posted by Stenar

I would turn State St. into our own version of Park Avenue. Widen the sidewalks and landscape the median. Park Avenue is slightly wider than State.

I would prefer there be protected bike lanes, and a dedicated transit ROW (probably BRT) down the middle instead of a median. But a landscaped median would be better than what it is currently, of course. Either way, I think State St. HAS to have bike lanes. There is more than enough room. There's really no reason that State St. shouldn't have them, honestly.

[Liberty Wellsian]

Originally Posted by airhero

Boulevard:


There are a lot more in the pdf. I can't believe they are exploring putting bike lanes on State, but apparently almost 90% of people at the workshop wanted them.

I like the Boulevard option but they should only do parking on half of the block, the other direction will get the other half. That would buy around 10 feet that could be used to slightly widen the sidewalks and create a center median. It would also create a Meandering effect that would soften the rigidity of the street.

[Utah_Dave]

I by no means consider myself an expert or a student on this forum, I'm just very interested about this subject at a hobby level. However, looking at a few of the options posted above for improving state street I still feel they miss at the pedestrian level even though they are an improvement. If I could experiment I would try narrowing the street but only on one side and then shifting it either west or east. That would free up a lot of land on one side of the road that could be put to much better use and become a draw by itself for multiple uses. There's no reason to have equal space on both sides when you could have one, more versital side of a street. This would be a more pleasing pedestrian experience on this road and provide more opportunity for creativity in its use. It would also more effectively narrow the street and make it easier to cross back and forth. I feel a center island is visually pleasing but is not any easier to cross and adds nothing to the experience or usage of the land. That being said, my plan may cost more in terms of lanes of traffic lost but I believe that is also the case with some of the proposals above. I'm curious what your thoughts are and thanks for posting the info about state street.

[bob rulz]

I don't think traffic on State St. is an issue anyway...lanes of traffic lost is not an issue. The only places I ever see gridlock (at least on the north side of the valley) are around the interchange with I-80 (which I imagine would never really change much anyway) and north of 100 S.

[Old&New]

was noticing big power lines near the great salt lake on the international airport thread. Thought something like this would be super cool. Power lines in Iceland



https://www.pinterest.com/pin/914862...tm_medium=2012

[bob rulz]

Ha, Utah - maybe not even the entirety of the U.S. - would never do something that creative. Iceland is its own unique corner of the world. They seem to take great pride in every little thing they do up there, which is great.

[StevenF]

Those would be really cool power lines to have running through Utah. I really think any new powerline running through Utah should be required to have wind turbines incorporated into them especially if they are tall ones.