Downtown Alliance - Salt Lake City, Utah

The blueprint calls for a blend of housing, retail, restaurants, a small theater and a possible urban research park that would be pedestrian friendly and connect the transit hub to the Rio Grande Depot a block east. It also envisions a streetcar connection, bike station and international student housing spread across the 13 acres now owned by the city's Redevelopment Agency. There even could be a year-round public market as well as restoration of the historic ice house building.

The Depot District stretches from 200 South to 400 South between 600 West and 500 West. Planners suggest some of the vacant buildings be revived while smaller warehouses could be razed.

Overall, the goal is to identify a land-use strategy -- complete with transit-oriented development zoning -- "that would help rejuvenate the neighborhood," explains D.J. Baxter, executive director of the RDA.

The desired overhaul is driven partly by a new report from Denver-based Citiventure Associates, an urban-planning firm the RDA hired late last year. Consultants launched a two-day workshop in November, touring the area and huddling with key property owners, UTA, the Downtown Alliance and the Utah Heritage Foundation. Their outline will be formally presented tonight to the RDA.

Funding could come by creating a special-assessment district that collects the annual property taxes from the "benefited" properties. The report calls for UTA to be included since ridership should be enhanced by the makeover.

"With so much of the property in public ownership, it will be essential for those entities to agree to pay an annual PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) equivalent to what the property-tax payment would have been," the report states. "As the area develops and the parcels are sold, the public sector transfers the responsibility for the payment to the new owner. The assessments provide revenue to issue bonds to do the infrastructure work."

Citiventure envisions phased upgrades, not a large "Gateway-like" project or an aquarium, whose owners once coveted the block west of Pioneer Park and now foresee a permanent home in Sandy.

Planners also want the city to focus on users, not developers.

"Developers are by and large out of business right now, but become plentiful once guaranteed users-tenants are in hand," they write. "Developers will want to tie up the land while they look for tenants."

Before anything else, the capital should clean up the forsaken patch, add lighting, landscaping, and tear out the buildings that won't be restored. All that, planners insist, could happen immediately and is necessary to attract private investment.

But one element listed under "opportunities" is sure to generate controversy. The report states that "homeless shelter relocation [is] being considered by a city task force." Planners do not say such a move for The Road Home is necessary, simply that it would provide additional development options.

Glenn Bailey, executive director of Crossroads Urban Center, says officials from other cities presented "campus models" at a December summit that showed clustered homeless services away from downtown business districts. Salt Lake City advocates long have feared that officials want to force out the shelter and other low-income services in the depot area to make way for taxpaying development.

"They're very interested in moving the services which, of course, the business community has wanted to do forever," he says, warning that a campus approach won't work. "It's expensive, it takes away from the housing-first option. And I don't think people want to be behind a wall. It does confirm my contention that the city does have an agenda."

Baxter says any move is "merely a consideration of options," but maintains "future uses of that property are certainly relevant."

LuAnn Clark, director of city housing and neighborhood development, notes the shelter's across-the-street overflow is operating on a conditional-use-permit with a five-year life span. Recent meetings, she says, are simply to discuss long-term options.

"We're being proactive so it doesn't get to year four and we say, 'What do we do now?'"

Consultants concede a transformational plan is challenging -- "particularly in an economy where both public and private resources are severely limited."

But the area, city leaders agree, is too important to downtown's image to be ignored.

City Councilman Luke Garrott, the new RDA chairman, supports the idea of a pedestrian-oriented promenade on 300 South between 500 West and 600 West, perhaps anchored by a public market. He is less keen on a public taxing subsidy. "I don't think we need it."

In any case, to make it successful, Garrott argues the zoning must be scaled toward transit and pedestrian use. He says that -- and carving the blocks with public rights of way -- is "half the game."

"If we're going to change the way Utah develops and make this actually be an urban neighborhood, we're going to have to really work at it."

Citiventure's final list of recommendations is expected by April.

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