Housing Proposals Push Downtown Living

The area just east of downtown Salt Lake City is sort of an interim zone, between neighborhoods where people really want to be.

With business encroachment, suburban flight and a high concentration of low-income residents and renters, the area between South Temple and 900 South and 200 East and 700 East never developed as a fashionable neighborhood.

But a number of housing projects are in the works that could bring more cachet to Central City. And the new Main Library, along with the planned open space on Library Square and the 400 South TRAX Line, could help fuel the reinvigoration.

Hoping to snag a $2.65 million loan from the city, the nonprofit CDC wants to build 29 condominiums at 250 E. 500 South, across the street from Library Square. The $3.6 million project would be called Mortensen Court Condominiums or maybe Library Park Condos. The City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on part of the loan.

"The reason we took on the project was specifically because the library was going in," said Bruce Quint, the CDC's executive director.

The proposed design calls for six live-work spaces that will cater to professionals such as psychologists, attorneys or accountants. There also would be studios and one- and two-bedroom units. Six units would be set aside for low-income residents. The rest would range between $95,000 and $160,000.

The CDC says it already has some takers -- including newlyweds Alexis and Benjamin Winward, who want to live near their workplaces and the nightclubs they frequent on weekends.

"It would relieve so much stress," Alexis Winward said. "That would give us, what, two hours extra [of saved commute time] every day we can spend with each other."

Still, the condo market is slow, according to Lynda Coleman of Coldwell Banker. There is a glut, she says, but demand will grow in the next several years. "Now we have TRAX and downtown's so beautiful. It's going to catch up. Eventually, the downtown area is going to be hoppin'. "

Some development already is under way or planned:

• Emigration Court Apartments, 343 S. 500 East. The development includes 208 units, with more than half set aside for low-income residents and 5,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. Overland Development, which is tearing down historic structures to build on the block, also wants 80 more market-rate apartments nearby and eventually condos.
• Block 53. Salt Lake City's Redevelopment Agency owns a 1.6-acre plot at 340 S. 200 East and has struggled to find a developer to build 120 condos (to be sold for up to $180,000), though it may have a partner in Price Prowswood, which originally owned the land. If that does not pan out, the RDA board, which is the City Council, might develop the condos on its own.
• SROs. The RDA recently spent $1.5 million to start purchasing three buildings to go along with a fourth on State Street between 200 South and 300 South. The purchase puts the RDA in charge of 180 single-room-occupancy (SRO) units, which essentially are transitional housing for low-income residents. Eventually, the RDA could sell the land to a developer to create larger apartments or condos.
• 400 South. No high- or medium-density housing is planned for "fast-food row" -- yet. But if the council passes a transit-oriented-development ordinance, the street could have up to six-story buildings between 200 East and 700 East at least partly set aside for urban dwellers.

Already built is The Plaza, high-end condos costing between $350,000 and $629,000. Located on top of the Brooks Arcade building, 300 S. State St., only four of the nine units have sold. And building owner Alphagraphics is struggling to fill the 18,000 square feet of storefront space.

Besides the current market, habit is holding back buyers, suspects Fred Behle, Alphagrahics' facilities manager. The sales pitch is "There are hundreds in Manhattan; only nine in Salt Lake City." It still must be an out-of-town phenomenon: All of the sold units went to non-Utahns. "We're all used to living out in the suburbs and commuting to Salt Lake everyday," Behle said. "Downtown living is still something that is a new concept."

Indeed, Central City is experiencing a bit of an identity crises. There is some resistance to building apartments and condos because people are used to single-home living, according to Councilwoman Nancy Saxton, who represents the area.

"We still think we have all this land and we still build things at all one level and have parking lots everywhere. The planners are ahead of the public," she said.

She wants the city to get more involved in promoting housing -- the council is making the issue a priority this year. Saxton envisions the city kicking in money to build underground parking structures so that dozens of parking lots downtown can be turned into housing units.

Planners and city officials believe that filling Central City and the neighborhoods west of the downtown core with residents will help them fill up Main Street storefronts. Adding housing to the older Main Street buildings has proven too expensive for now.

Mayor Rocky Anderson's office views the budding housing projects as vindication for nixing a plan that would have created housing on Library Square itself. Anderson persuaded the council to turn the lot into green space -- which will go in this summer -- believing housing would take root around it.

"We thought the wiser strategy would be to create a fabulous community resource that would help to entice the private sector," said D.J. Baxter, Anderson's senior adviser.

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