Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[Rileybo]

arkhitektor, sometimes you have to play ball with the devil. That's what the city is doing.

Downtown has slowly improved over the last few decades, there's still work to be done but SLC in the 2010s/20s is a far cry from the place it was in the 1980s/90s, how disheartening would it be for the 2020s/30s to be a major step back vibrancy-wise? Also remember that the only thing that most suburban residents go to downtown for is Jazz games.

SLC could say "fuck you" to Ryan Smith but the city would only be fucking itself. This land has been wasted our entire lives, if Ryan Smith moves the Jazz it will remain dead until we're all dead.

[airhero]

A lot of the details still haven’t been shared so I’m not sure what to think. The biggest question for me is still the convention center. A few hundred million? That can’t be the cost for a rebuild. Seattle’s convention center expansion cost 2 billion and it’s about half the size of our convention center. I’m beginning to think this downsizing really will be massive. Because unless they plan a multi story rebuild (which I believe would be in the billion(s) tier), or span across some other street to some other block (which probably isn’t the plan given the rhetoric about not creating new walls) we are looking at about half the exhibit hall space that we have now.

We’ll see, I guess.

[arkhitektor]

Originally Posted by Rileybo

arkhitektor, sometimes you have to play ball with the devil. That's what the city is doing.

Downtown has slowly improved over the last few decades, there's still work to be done but SLC in the 2010s/20s is a far cry from the place it was in the 1980s/90s, how disheartening would it be for the 2020s/30s to be a major step back vibrancy-wise? Also remember that the only thing that most suburban residents go to downtown for is Jazz games.

SLC could say "fuck you" to Ryan Smith but the city would only be fucking itself. This land has been wasted our entire lives, if Ryan Smith moves the Jazz it will remain dead until we're all dead.

I wish the Miller family had never sold the Jazz to Ryan Smith. He's only owned the team for four years and is already grifting the taxpayers for his own gain.

[Blah_Amazing]

Here is what I took for the City Council Meeting.

1) The Smith Group appeared to clarify in one their answers to questions that they are limited to the $900 million the State government has already authorized based on this sales tax increase of 1.5 percentage points. All additional funds raised will be used/ go to to the other aspects of the district.

2) A significant portion of this $900 million (several hundred million) will be spent on the Delta Center renovation and the rest on infrastructure and other aspects of the District's development. It's not like its just going into Ryan Smith's pockets. People saying this are either just misinformed or just want to spread hate.

3) Abravanel Hall could very likely be saved, though they haven't ruled out replacing the structure with a new facility if that is what pencils out. Sounds like they think fully renovating and bringing up to needed standards could cost hundreds of millions.

4) I actually took from it that they want to actually expand the amount of ballrooms and square footage in the Salt Palace, or at least redesign it to better fit how modern conventions are run. That seemed to be what the SL County Mayor was describing. So I agree the most likely way that happens is if they are able to build a second story to the Salt Palace, which I would be all for tbh.

5) They talked heavily on increasing the east-west connectivity between their tentatively proposed new entry to the Delta Center on the Eastern side all the way to City Creek. Personally, I don't see how that is done without demoing through the Salt Place and likely removing the museum and Abravanel Hall. I think we will need real renderings of what they really intend in order to better understand these proposals. At least so we have a better understanding of what is going on with the Salt Palace. I think that should be required before any types of final approvals could be made.

6) Honestly, at the end of the day, I felt like we really didn't learn anything new. Just some clarifications. It does appear that the City Council are mostly on board with this, with only one or two voicing 'real concerns.' I think at this point it's very likely they will get what they are asking for.

[RC14]

Originally Posted by arkhitektor

I agree that these blocks are currently underutilized, but whether they're used for a concert hall, museum and convention center or an "entertainment district" these are two of the most centrally located and lucrative pieces of land in the entire state. They belong to the people of Salt Lake county currently. Why should we demolish the public buildings that sit on them and give control of the land to a private developer for nothing? ...it's actually less than nothing, though, since the taxpayers in SLC will have to pay additional sales taxes for the privilege of giving away public land.

You're looking at wrong. you're looking at purely on the basis of tax revenue and subsidies and ignoring all the benefits/costs of what is actually built there.


I don't agree that we are "getting nothing." We are getting those blocks back. Right now they are sitting under the convention center. After they are developed, we will be able to walk around, shop, eat at the restaurants and bars, enjoy the nightlife and celebrate when our teams win playoff games. And I haven't gotten to all the benefits the city will receive from additional foot traffic downtown, walking around the other city blocks and frequenting the restaurants, bars, nightclubs etc. In addition to the simple fact that City Creek and Main street will finally be connected to the west side.

Right now, we have a large convention center that acts as a wall in the middle of downtown. But at least it's ours right? It's public so that means we all own it. And collectively paying for the maintenance of a giant wall severing downtown is better then a Rich Billionaire developing those blocks in a way that actually makes them vibrant and useful to us.

Yes this project will transform and reconnect downtown, solving a myriad of problems that we have been complaining about on this form of years, in addition to giving us a new NHL team, an updated arena, convention center, concert hall and a revitalization of Japan town but we can't have that because a billionaire might benefit from it.

[Blah_Amazing]

I will also say that I think the implications of this go WAY beyond just the Delta Center and the Salt Palace blocks.

If Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, and/or Utah fails to meet the moment on these requests, it will likely have a massive snowball effect down the road.

It's likely, even based on the comments today, they could simply move the Jazz and the NHL team out of Salt Lake City. (Conspiracy hat on) I don't think it's a coincidence that the plans for the NHL Sandy practice center was announced the day before this meeting today. That land could just as easily fit both a practice center, a new NHL & NBA stadium, plus tons of mixed use development to boot.

It could also shatter any chance of Salt Lake getting an MLB team as well, as it will show Salt Lake can't deliver on what is really required to develop these kinds of large district developments. Essentially, we would quickly be seen as unreliable.

A large portion of why we are likely to get the Olympics again is because of the significant support of both officials and citizens and the willingness of all levels of government to support the Olympics. This has created a significant amount of trust and sense that the IOC can rely on Utah to get things done. The same can very well be said for sports, entertainment, convention, and culture districts as well.

So if we succeed in getting these policies through, it further enforces that Salt Lake and Utah are more than capable of quick cooperation and support. It shows that Salt Lake is able to deliver these kind of necessary policies needed not just for modern sports venues or districts, but for all types of businesses and opportunities.

[i-215]

It's still very difficult for me to celebrate demolishing the convention center when there's a perfectly vacant block to the north.

I know it's naive, but this part of me that feels like we ought to be developing all the parking lots in downtown first before we start tearing down the developed area.

[bob rulz]

I definitely agree that I wish the LDS Church was willing to do ANYTHING with their vacant parking lots. But this is what we have, we should try to make the best of it. I'm sure the city will receive a ton of public comment. Some of it may even be productive.

I don't like the thought of demolishing Abravanel Hall at all, as I have expressed before. But I do think that if it does come to that, a new performance hall will be part of the plans because I don't think they're naive to how important that is to the city and the culture.

The Salt Palace is dated and as expressed, a major impediment to street level vibrancy. There really is an opportunity to do something good here.

[arkhitektor]

The most telling part of yesterday's meeting was when the SEG rep said that even if the Delta Center was a new, perfectly designed and constructed facility for both hockey and basketball, they still wouldn't stay there. Essentially saying that this whole thing for them is, at its core, a real estate development deal.

Smith is using the lure of a new NHL team to bilk the public out of hundreds of millions of dollars so that he can build privately owned hotels and residences and shops and restaurants.

He's asking the public to give him prime land and demolish public buildings and cultural institutions to do so. If you just step back for a moment and consider what they're demanding of the public, it's honestly nuts.

Most of our elected officials are buying it because they're too distracted by this shiny new thing to see what a bad deal this is for the public.

[TheGeographer]

I don’t get this narrative that the west side and east side are disconnected. You can walk down 200 S and it is completely connected. In fact the only road not connected is 100 S, so there is more connection then non-connection. With that said it would be awesome to have more development and maybe a tower or two. Hoping they can figure this all out without minimizing the convention center and tearing down/not replacing AH. If they can rebuild the convention center with more floors, maintain/rebuild AH, and build some towers and another downtown street with restaurants/bars/etc, then that would be awesome. And yes Ryan Smith will make lots of money from this, but as Riley pointed out sometimes you have to play ball with the Devil. And some of our elected officials may or may not make money from development themselves so of course they’re going to go along with this. Many other cities have elected officials that make lots of money in sketchy ways from development. Look at Philadelphia as a case study for how they move homeless people around and legalize drugs to bring down the prices of real estate in certain city blocks, then go in and buy it and gentrify it then move the homeless elsewhere. Development in cities can be a grimy business that elected officials can get involved in. With that said I would like this development to work out if it can check boxes that make the residents of SLC happy. Hard to say no to an NHL team and new shiny development

[Makid]

It looks like I am late to the party, I will try to avoid rehashing things a bit...

I have talked to a few people regarding the convention center and its usage. There has been a shift away from large expositions and towards larger meetings. The largest expos at the Salt Palace do not use the entire exhibit space. OR has reduced the overall size of their shows by having multiple smaller, more focused shows.

There had been talk about reconfiguring the expansion hall (west block) of the Salt Palace and replacing it with meeting rooms plus a large ballroom. This would allow the center to host 2 larger meetings/conventions at the same time. The biggest issue with this though was the lack of hotel rooms to allow for multiple, concurrent, large conventions/meetings. So losing this space isn't going to impact any current or future bookings. If there will be an impact to currently booked conventions, it will be in how the overall restructuring happens.

From what is currently under discussion, 1st South is still going to be blocked at 1st South to accommodate the convention center space requirements. This was eluded to in the meeting yesterday regarding a connection between CCC and the Delta Center. The connection is more likely to be a mid-block pedestrian connection. You can visualize the cross walk in front of Nordstrom's as the connector.

There are a few hopes and thoughts for how the Convention Center will be reconfigured but no one knows or can share anything yet. We should know more towards the end of the year.

Now, one thing to remember with this reconfiguration and reconstruction of basically 2 blocks is that they are currently a property tax hole in the City. As the blocks are redeveloped, we will see additional tax revenue. While some of this revenue will be used for public benefits within the blocks and transportation upgrades around them, the rest of the revenue increase can be allocated as needed to best support the area/city/county.

This is something that is rare and doesn't happen very often in an existing City. It last happened when the CCH was built.

Lastly, I wanted to provide some insight into the push from the State on the 2 sport related bills this last session.

As others have mentioned, there was a plan for a new arena to be built at the Point of the Mountain in the Prison Redevelopment area that would accommodate NHL and Basketball. This was going to be a focal point for the area that the State Legislature has wanted. There were some issues brought up that helped to slow the push for the southern arena, transit/transportation infrastructure was a big key item of discussion. The main factor though that lead to the shift of focus to downtown was the LDS Church.

It is my understanding that the Church lobbyists spoke in favor of SLC and made mention that they wanted the City to thrive and that they have been working to enhance the City. They pointed to City Creek as them investing in the City to benefit the City. The Church was also shocked that the State would push for a project that would harm the very city that they are directly invested in.

When I heard about this, the push for a connection between City Creek Center and the Delta Center makes more sense.

[delts145]

Thank you Makid, Comrade, Atlas, and everyone who has made so many informative pro-SLC comments regarding the importance of having both the NBA and NHL at the heart of downtown.

As Makid among others has pointed out, the importance of the LDS Church in the matter of keeping the sporting entertainment center downtown vs. south valley can't be stressed enough. They've invested billions recently in the improvement of downtown and that weight is going to count. One thing to consider about City Creek. Comparing Central L.A.'s recent entertainment/shopping center upgradesMany billions of dollars have gone into the retrofit of four of Central L.A.'s shopping/entertainment centers these past 10 to 20 years. First, there is nothing in downtown L.A. that can even begin to approach the design and impressiveness of City Creek. Central but away from downtown would be the newly remodeled Beverly Center and the newly reimagined Century City Center as standout comparisons. The Beverly Center is a giant inward-focused fortress. It is daunting and even intimidating to try and treat it as surface street pedestrian-friendly. It's basically, the old Crossroads on steroids. Century City would probably be a more worthy comparison. Century City itself is a rather bland collection of upscale offices. Not that the towers themselves aren't attractive, but the walkability is very uninteresting and what someone could describe as upscale vapid. The mall portion has made some significant improvements and it does have a few more shopping options such as a Bloomingdales, but the point is its overall aesthetic is far inferior to the setup and jaw-dropping beauty of City Creek. The only thing that City Creek lacks is a fully flushed out continuation of an entertainment district as is now being discussed. I believe City Creek is an incredible beginning but it never was suppose to be an end all. Like Makid implied, it was meant as a catalyst that would spur on major development such as Eccles, an agressive Arrow Press Square, and of course what most everyone is now giddy about regarding the Delta Center and Salt Palace areas redo.

Regarding the Abravanel Hall. While I have no facts to back me up as far as exactly what its future holds I will venture a couple of common sense possibilities.

- First, don't be surprised if the LDS Church happily carves out a piece of those parking lots for a spectacular new Abravanel Hall. The Church is heavily committed to not only the Symphony's success but also its future prestige and elevation.

- As has been repeatedly pointed out, the shoe box setup of the performance hall itself while acoustically world-class is not conducive to the current need to provide enough premium seats and the multi-generational wealth that abundant premium seating attracts. It is a fact that cannot be ignored any more than luxury boxes can be ignored in a sporting stadium. Those uber-wealthy patrons with net worths in the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars are what will keep the Symphony solvent and also allow the Symphony to begin to copy some of the strategies that have continued to elevate Ballet West. Like Ballet West, the Utah Symphony needs to tour and extend its donor reach. Ballet West has many fans who donate generously. It's not uncommon for the wealthy of places like Aspen and Santa Barbara to chip into Ballet West's continued and growing prestige.

- Look for Abravanel to maintain its acoustics standard, but there is a strong possibility the experts will opt to rethink the shoebox-style performance hall as more of a Disney Hall-type configuration.

- The overabundance of general public, and or student seating can more than be compensated by outstanding venues like Gardner, Covey, Taylorsville, UVU, and BYU's new performance halls to name a few. The new Gardner is by no means a slouch and actually, is a step above what many of the 50 largest metros could currently offer.

- Given the many levels of importance that the Church places on the future success of the Symphony it is probably the one structure and property that the Church would get behind 100% whether they donate a portion of the So. Temple Property or donate an attractive plot somewhere else downtown. You can bet they will also facilitate generous donations from their many one-percenter families like the Marriotts etc. toward building a new hall that is world-class in every way.

- Currently, the Symphony Performers, Directors, etc. are in the middle of the national pack as far as compensation. In order to not only tour and record more but elevate the Symphony's prestige the salaries have to increase by an average of 25 to 40 thousand dollars per performer. That does not even begin to cover an internationally prominent conductor/director. Of course, we're not talking anywhere near the mind-boggling numbers of a major league sports franchise player's and coach's dollars, but the formula pyramid is the same type of setup

[Atlas]

Originally Posted by Makid

As others have mentioned, there was a plan for a new arena to be built at the Point of the Mountain in the Prison Redevelopment area that would accommodate NHL and Basketball. This was going to be a focal point for the area that the State Legislature has wanted. There were some issues brought up that helped to slow the push for the southern arena, transit/transportation infrastructure was a big key item of discussion. The main factor though that lead to the shift of focus to downtown was the LDS Church.

It is my understanding that the Church lobbyists spoke in favor of SLC and made mention that they wanted the City to thrive and that they have been working to enhance the City. They pointed to City Creek as them investing in the City to benefit the City. The Church was also shocked that the State would push for a project that would harm the very city that they are directly invested in.

When I heard about this, the push for a connection between City Creek Center and the Delta Center makes more sense.

Amazing. If true, this explains why this whole push to build the stadiums downtown felt so unexpected. Like them or not, the Church is one of SLC's biggest boosters and I am thankful for it.

And it's worth remembering that the Church surely doesn't want the Utah Symphony to move out of downtown. I don't think there was ever any version of this huge redevelopment that excluded a concert hall, whether it's Abravanel or an entirely new structure.

I am optimistic.

[dakben]

Originally Posted by goldcntry

The yellow device you see on the central West tower is a small crane to assist in moving blocks of granite in rebuilding the spire. Most of the spires had one whilst rebuilding. I'll try and get a clear and closer pic this Thursday at practice.

I was hopeful it was a new cubist take on Moroni. Maybe they should just leave one...

[airhero]

Thank Makid for that info. I was wondering about 100 S given the talk about this direct east west connection through the middle of the north block. It’s incredible what can happen in this state when the church gets involved.

[ucsbgaucho]

Curious what they are going to do with the Nordstrom building when this is all said and done... they want to create a seamless connection from the Gateway all the way through City Creek, yet on the west end of City Creek is the behemoth Nordstrom, that essentially does on the east side of W Temple what the CC does on the west side of the same street. So if they're wanting to create a mid-block public promenade that lets you walk all the way from City Creek down to the Delta Center and finally into the Gateway, they have to somehow open up City Creek on that side. Sure there's a narrow set of stairs on the north side of Nordstrom but it's not like it's a wide-open way to access City Creek.

Also, I guess there was mention of the Delta Center doors facing "east", currently because of the angled building they have the entrances that face NE and SE. With that rendering they put out, it seems like what they may be thinking of doing is reskinning the outside of the DC so that it doesn't look like a square. Push out the entrance and concourses with the main doors facing directly east. That may give them the room they need to expand the lower bowl outward to fit the ice. Also means they'd probably have to demo a bunch of the concrete that supports the lower bowl seating and replace it with more retractable seating which will be adjustable based on the night; same number of seats in the lower bowl will extend out farther for basketball and not as far for hockey, the rows would just be steeper.

[airhero]

^^^I was wondering the same thing, and given the struggles department stores have had, I wonder if that space would eventually become vacant and be torn down, with mid block access opening up. Kinda seems possible. I’d hope in that case the facade could be reused in some way.

Also Gateway should have done a much better job interfacing with the Delta Center from the get go. It’s disappointing how disconnected they feel from each other when they are neighbors. I wonder if that interface could also be improved.

[Atlas]

On a related note, as much as we all dislike the Asher Adams hotel's design at the UP Depot/Gateway, I think it's going to be awesome for the area.

There will be public pedestrian access through the main hall to the Gateway, and it will be adaptively reused to have a restaurant, bar, coffee shop, and new "train station-esque" seating. The hotel will also bring in guests and conferences, which will support the existing bars and restaurants around it.

[ucsbgaucho]

Originally Posted by airhero

^^^I was wondering the same thing, and given the struggles department stores have had, I wonder if that space would eventually become vacant and be torn down, with mid block access opening up. Kinda seems possible. I’d hope in that case the facade could be reused in some way.

Also Gateway should have done a much better job interfacing with the Delta Center from the get go. It’s disappointing how disconnected they feel from each other when they are neighbors. I wonder if that interface could also be improved.

Well since the Church is on board with this whole district, including being ok with the liquor laws changing in this area to remove the required distance from alcohol establishments and community spaces, maybe they're seeing a potential benefit in doing something radical on that end of City Creek. They need to do something as it's struggling.

Would be amazing if they cut straight through Nordstrom to continue that promenade that winds through both blocks of City Creek and extend it across W Temple. It could wind just to the south of UMOCA and AH and then be the central promenade of the new entertainment district.

[Orlando]

/\/\/\ I really like that idea.