2020: The year of the crane in Salt Lake City?

By Brice Wallace 

No matter what the Chinese calendar calls for, Matt Baldwin envisions 2020 for downtown Salt Lake City as the “Year of the Crane.”

As in, construction crane.

The 2019 chairman of the Downtown Alliance Board, speaking at the organization’s annual State of Downtown event, said that ground will be broken this year on five major projects that will add a total of more than 100 stories to the downtown skyline.{mprestriction ids="1,3"}

“Combined, these projects will add 2 million square feet of new office space, residential apartments and hotel rooms,” he said. “Additionally, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will begin a historic four-year renovation of Temple Square. 2020 is shaping up to be the ‘Year of the Construction Crane.’”

Among the projects listed at the organization’s website are 95 State, a 24-story office building; a convention center hotel with 28 stories; Liberty Sky, with 24 stories of residential space; West Quarter, a pair of 11-story residential/hotel buildings; and MODA Luxe, 11 stories of mixed-used residential space.

“Downtown Salt Lake City’s future has never been brighter,” Baldwin said. “The economy is growing, and the skyline is rising.”

But Baldwin cautioned that the rising skyline is “just one measure of our growing city.” Downtown Salt Lake City has seen its housing stock increase 78 percent since 2000, with lease activity growing in finance, coworking space and technology sectors. Downtown already has 95 tech companies “and the downtown has a unique constellation of assets that is attracting even more tech talent and companies,” he said.

Those include 144 retailers.

“There’s an array of merchants providing a unique urban experience that attracts millions of shoppers every year,” Baldwin said. “The Gateway and City Creek Center are innovating and succeeding in a changing retail market, and merchants on Broadway, Main Street and 2nd & 2nd make up a thriving small-business community.”

The Main Street and Exchange Place neighborhood anchor “a legitimate nightlife district” that is emerging downtown and offers 43 bars and 121 restaurants “that are delighting guests, employing workers, generating tax revenues and chipping away at the outdated notion that there is nothing to do in Salt Lake City,” he said.

Also, more than 40 visual and performing arts organizations produce more than 80 events each month.

As for the future, Dee Brewer, Downtown Alliance’s executive director, listed several priorities for 2020 that are designed to springboard Salt Lake City toward the year 2040. As a group, they represent a change from priorities of a decade ago. At that time, the push focused on weekly farmers markets; green bike programs; holiday lights; and events including Dine O’Round, Eve and Last Hurrah.

Those events, he said, attracted people to downtown “when there wasn’t a lot of ‘there’ out there, right? It was sort of dark times, and those activations made a big difference. I can tell you that those ideas worked. Today, or any week, there are a dozen things, a dozen choices, that we have to participate in downtown. Downtown is alive, active and vibrant.

“The alliance’s attention today is less about creating events and more about addressing the opportunities and challenges associated with the remarkable growth that we are experiencing downtown right now.”

Among the priorities are pushing for investment to address transportation, parking, zoning and residential and commercial development. “Let’s plan for density,” Brewer said. “It’s coming.”

Downtown needs more residential units and improvements in Pioneer Park, as well as managing the effects resulting from heavy construction projects on West Temple, North Temple, 300 West and State Street, he said.

In an effort to provide “a safe and welcoming downtown to all,” “street ambassadors” have been deployed to seek out people in crisis or living without shelter and get them to service providers that can help them, assist visitors with directions and referrals to local businesses, help businesses respond to aggressive panhandlers, and help remove encampments that interfere with business operations.

Since Jan. 1, the ambassadors have conducted 1,067 wellness checks, provided 926 service referrals, helped 2,260 visitors with directions, performed 1,560 merchant checks, intervened in 733 incidents of aggressive panhandling, and provided 3,387 checks on known criminal hot spots, Brewer said.

The alliance also will produce more articles and expand its social media platforms to support downtown businesses and promote downtown commercial real estate.

“We will continue to extol the unique benefits of locating in downtown Salt Lake City,” Brewer said. “Suburban Wasatch Front cannot offer what downtown has, and … Salt Lake measures up very well against our competitive set of western cities.”

The organization also wants to improve and grow the tech startup ecosystem — “We are focused on attracting residents, workforce talent and customers,” he said — and the audiences for cultural and arts programs.

“We will support growth of downtown’s nighttime economy. Downtown Salt Lake City should be put to work, 18 hours a day, to attract workforce talent, attract residents and visitors, and increase property value and generate tax revenue,” he said.

What Salt Lake City looks like in 2040 will be the result “of the planning and investment we make today,” Brewer said. “We look forward to working with all of you in taking these bold steps in 2020 to create the downtown that we want in 2040.”

Such focused planning would build upon similar prior efforts, Baldwin noted.

“The downtown growth and success that we celebrate today were borne out of the dreaming, planning, risk-taking and hard work by people in this room and by many others in the business community and our municipal government partners,” Baldwin said. “We all have reason to be proud of what we are creating together downtown.”{/mprestriction}