Quote:
Originally Posted by freeshavocado
I think the Main Street Tower is an ugly franken-building that won't age well, and the mid-block park plan isn't great. Though I'd prefer to see it built over leaving a hole in the ground for a decade.
I want the most prominent, blighted gaps in the urban fabric to be filled. So, the two projects I'd like completed first are the Grid/West Q (finally removing Royal Wood Plaza and making 200 S a complete urban street) and Soren Tower (finally filling that empty plot on one of the biggest entry streets into town).
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I used to be a lot more excited for the West Temple tower (Soren) than I am now. The exposed parking structure is a huuuuge no no for me. To the point where I don't think I'd mind if the project fails to be built as currently designed.
Soren is a perfect example of Salt Lake City needing to pass code changes banning exposed parking structures in the D-Zones and require all of them to be covered in cladding or some other method of coverage.
The original design was MUCH better:
I also think that if Soren needed to go through design review it wouldn't have been left exposed and they would have stuck with the original design. However, since they can build up to 375 at a corner (corner rules supposedly going away?) by right without a design review, they can basically get away with it. I think Salt Lake really needs to rethink how they separate design review from no design review.
If it was me, I would require everything in the D-Zones going through design review no matter how big or small. I think we would get better architecture and better projects Downtown by doing that.