Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 5

[Reeder113]

Originally Posted by Atlas

That is a gorgeous shot. The apartment that I used to live in was directly under where the drone was hovering.

Astra, Main Street Apartments, and the Regent Street Hotel will fit nicely into that picture from that perspective.

[Atlas]

MVE posted an update on Sugar Alley. These pictures confirm what I had been thinking for awhile: only half of the wood-framed part of the building has been built on top of the concrete podium. Anyone know why? Hopefully they didn't just axe the other half permanently.

[i2theSKY]

Originally Posted by Reeder113

Astra, Main Street Apartments, and the Regent Street Hotel will fit nicely into that picture from that perspective.

Those in addition to Worthington/Convexity, Sundial, and 370 S W Temple should make for a pretty dense looking skyline from that angle.

[Marvland]

Originally Posted by Blah_Amazing

Portland is indeed a good example to look when it comes to urban planning. However, its development fits with what I was suggesting, not with what you were suggesting, Orlando.

Portland is a good example of a city that has allowed high rise development to expand outside its CBD, and included it in the development of their warehouse district - literally what I was suggesting. The towers and the increased population that brought to The Pearl District is absolutely key to the Districts' overall success as a unique and eclectic neighborhood.

This is exactly the lesson we should learn from Portland and the Pearl District. The Granary District has the potential to become a cool and unique place, that better melds with the Downtown SLC while also retaining its warehouse identity. This will not be nearly as likely, however, if we retain this suffocating zoning restrictions and reduce everything to 3-5 floor standard apartment buildings.

Orlando, I do hope you reflect further on what I am saying and what Portland has shown us. If done well, allowing towers in the Granary District would unlock the area's real potential, just as it has for the Pearl District. Enforcing arbitrary zoning height restrictions only hamper the area at this point.

After all, it's not like I am saying we should build skyscrapers in Sugar House. The Granary is literally adjacent to the D-1 CBD zones. Actually significantly even more adjacent to Downtown Salt Lake than the Pearl District is to Downtown Portland.

Salt Lake has the real potential to become a truly great city in the coming several decades, if we can break out of these restrictions and allow more freedom in areas that will genuinely benefit from it.

I agree with this sentiment. One of the key advantages of allowing additional height is that it allows more units above the breaking point for the typical "four/five plus one" building type that allows wood framing of about 5 floors above a parking deck. Builders do that because of IBC/Fire regulations (and also because it's CHEAP). The results of that style has been pretty terrible not just in SLC but across the country. Go above about 7 total floors and builders are required to go to concrete or steel construction. The results would be much better than our shameful 4th South corridor and more in line with things like Brinshore.

[ucsbgaucho]

Beautiful drone shot someone captured (Carter Peterson) and shared on the KUTV Twitter account.

[Reeder113]

Originally Posted by ucsbgaucho

Beautiful drone shot someone captured (Carter Peterson) and shared on the KUTV Twitter account.

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9513610&postcount=12659

[ucsbgaucho]

Originally Posted by Reeder113

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9513610&postcount=12659

Haha woops, totally missed your post!

[mstar]

Atlas, there was an problem getting the north podium started. They just recently completed the north podium. My understanding is that the entire north side will be framed in too now the the podium is complete.

[delts145]

^^^
I'm assuming it was as a result of the serious problem with concrete supply, right?

[Orlando]

This is what I think the appropriate scale of the Granary should be. It's a mile away from the downtown, and it's nowhere close to the density and proximity to downtown that the Pearl District had.



I designed this with a couple other colleagues while with Ankrom Moisan in Seattle. The priority should be Placemaking, not just towers for the sake of seeing cool towers from a distance.

[TheGeographer]

Originally Posted by Orlando

This is what I think the appropriate scale of the Granary should be. It's a mile away from the downtown, and it's nowhere close to the density and proximity to downtown that the Pearl District had.



I designed this with a couple other colleagues while with Ankrom Moisan in Seattle. The priority should be Placemaking, not just towers for the sake of seeing cool towers from a distance.

I like the green roofs and overall design. I don’t think anyone’s saying that we want the entire granary dominated by towers. What would make sense is if there is a developer who wants to build over 150 ft in the granary let them go through the design process and do it if it’s a good design and makes sense. A few 150-300ft towers in the granary that is really only about a mile away from our main downtown would help extend the skyline and be fine imo

[TheGeographer]

One thing I’m worried about concerning strict height restrictions in the granary are developers coming in and building a bunch of cheaper 5 story buildings if lower height buildings is the precedence that is set. You mention placemaking. The eastern part of your design with the copper toned buildings seems to get at that, somewhere people would want to live and work. The reality is though that if the city says developers cannot build up, then developers will come in and build a bunch of 5-7 story apartments and offices. At the end of the day developers are about making money a lot of the times and not building cool looking buildings with green roofs and better designs. That’s why I am against such a stringent height limit. A height limit up to 300ft would allow developers to think bigger if they so choose. Speaking of restrictions, we need some street engagement and connectivity restrictions more than stringent height restrictions. Otherwise let’s be honest, given our track record developers will build apartments that slap 4-6 stories on top of 2 story parking garages without much street engagement, regardless of what designs are proposed.

[Comrade]

Originally Posted by Orlando

This is what I think the appropriate scale of the Granary should be. It's a mile away from the downtown, and it's nowhere close to the density and proximity to downtown that the Pearl District had.



I designed this with a couple other colleagues while with Ankrom Moisan in Seattle. The priority should be Placemaking, not just towers for the sake of seeing cool towers from a distance.

Throw in a couple 15-25 story towers, though, and it's infinitely better, imo

I don't think the whole area has to be wall-to-wall high-rises but a couple would be nice.

[wrendog]

Originally Posted by Comrade

Throw in a couple 15-25 story towers, though, and it's infinitely better, imo

I don't think the whole area has to be wall-to-wall high-rises but a couple would be nice.

Yeah... Needs some height. And some more density

[Orlando]

Still disagree with adding towers in there. Maybe a couple 10-12 story towers would work, but even the 12-story tower I designed for the Fleet Block will be a tough sell.
Look at what's going on at Central 9th. It's low-scale, but adding a lot of vibrancy.

Mid-rise podiums add the density and street activity that enhance urban living, sometimes even more than towers.

[Comrade]

Most every major western city is seeing growth of high-rises outside the downtown area and Salt Lake ... is not. We either embrace it now or get left behind, imo

[Orlando]

Here's a different view of that masterplan. Mid-rise buildings, but lots of urban vibrancy potential. From this point of view, the tower starts to look out of place.


Here's one of the housing buildings I designed for that masterplan. It's not your typical podium product. It's actually modular, and it steps down in scale from 300 west to the single family homes & Central 9th directly to the east on 9th South.

[bob rulz]

The tower doesn't look even remotely out of place there imo.

As others have said, I don't think we're asking for wall-to-wall towers in the Granary District, but there's no reason why we can't see a few taller towers scattered around over time. It's not just about seeing towers from a distance, mid-rise towers have a legitimate place in placemaking for urban areas as well.

And while I do love that vision in general, we all know that the architectural quality of a bunch of 5-8 story apartment buildings isn't going to be anywhere close to what you've presented there.

[Makid]

Originally Posted by Orlando

Look at what's going on at Central 9th. It's low-scale, but adding a lot of vibrancy.

Mid-rise podiums add the density and street activity that enhance urban living, sometimes even more than towers.

I do agree that we are seeing a lot of low rise buildings happening in the Central 9th. The issue though is that this is due to the height limits that are already in place. In fact, it is these limits that made the City Council act to start the study that would increase height limits in the City.

The reasoning is that developer after developer for the last few years has approached the Planning Commission with plans for buildings that have been deemed to tall for the zoning. Not a single developer was approved for even a few feet above the Design Review height limit by the commission. These developers then approached the City Council where the heights were approved. It was the Henry's project that pushed James Rogers to want just a blanked doubling of the height limits immediately.

I think that many people see a height limit like a speed limit, in that everyone goes to the maximum they can and stays there. As a counter argument, just look at the current D1 area. In the last 20 years, we have seen 5 corner lot (375') design review petitions and approvals. We have also seen 8 mid-block (100') design review petitions and approvals. Sadly, we have also had 1 corner block petition for a height reduction (100' min height) approved. These numbers do not include Block 67 nor the CCH.

Just because developers can build to the limit, doesn't mean that they will. Once developers start pushing and hitting the maximum even after design review, it shows that the limit is too short and needs to be increased. Increasing it slightly doesn't really help.

If the Granary allowed a height of up to 250' and the Depot district allowed up to 375', the developers would not hit those targets today and definitely wouldn't hit it with every project.

We know of 2 projects that push the heights in the Depot District. Slack Development with their 200' project directly adjacent to the Central Station and UTA's HQ building estimated between 180' and 225'. In the rest of the area, only 1 or 2 projects have needed to request a Design Review to exceed the As of Right limit. In the Granary district, there are no projects over 150' even proposed, yet close to 50% of the projects submitted over the last 2 years have wanted to push over the Design Review limit and most have had to remove units to fit in the zoning.

For the most part, we know that developers will build what yields the best ROI for them and their investors. This is why we are seeing a lot of 5 over 1 and 5 over 2 construction around the City. We have seen a few 5 over 3's in the City but they aren't common. Only the last few years has the downtown area is seeing more high rise apartment projects. Even during this time, the area has seen a multitude of shorter projects.

I honestly think that the height limits could be increased to the following and we would see only slight increases to the current heights of projects:
Downtown
As of Right Height: 400'
Design Review Height: Unlimited

Depot District
As of Right Height: 2/3 height of tallest building within the Downtown district
Design Review Height: 3/4 height of tallest building within the Downtown district

Granary District
As of Right Height: 1/2 height of tallest building within the Downtown district
Design Review Height: No design review height adjustment

I just wish that while discussing height limits, the City looked into project width and depth limits. These all go hand in hand.

[Orlando]

Okay guys, I hear you, but have any of you looked at the Granary charrette? The community and others put together a vision for that area. I'm trying to pull up the plan that they had created, but have not yet found it. Here are some other links:

https://vimeo.com/543354527

https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=54050072&itype=CMSID