September 11^th, 2001 seems like a lifetime ago. That date, burned into many of our brains was when the twin towers fell in NYC and killed almost 3,000 people. At the time of the terrorist attack, the World Trade Center’s twin towers were the tallest buildings in NYC-1,369 and 1,362 feet tall, respectively.  They were later replaced by One World Trade Center at 1,776 feet tall which is the tallest building in the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere. Why mention this? Salt Lake City is undergoing a massive push by some to create even taller buildings in the capitol city, mostly touted as a necessary improvement to our zoning rules by the Smith Entertainment Group who are attempting to redesign and build in an integral part of downtown.

Currently the residential/business project known now as Astra Tower on the corner of State Street and 200 South is hovering over pedestrians at 450 feet and 40-stories tall,  but the Salt Lake City Council unanimously approved a zoning change last week that increases the maximum building height in the Smith Entertainment Group sports and entertainment district in and around the Delta Center from a current 125 feet to 600 feet. There was one caveat tho, “Any structure that is 200 feet or taller will need to go through a design review by the Planning and Zoning Commission”. It’s my opinion that our P and Z Commission is made up of pretty tough volunteer planners who have proven in the past to have foresight as to how our city should grow and I’m glad they will be involved in design review. As a planner myself for eight years with the city we worked for over a year, every month, with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to get the entire City Creek project off the ground, including not just the teardown of Crossroads Mall but the build of the retail mall on two sides of Main Street and the condo/apartment buildings surrounding it in their new project. There were a ton of variances required and rules changed to get certain aspects of the project to fruition.

You may have strong opinions about high rises filling up Salt Lake’s downtown. Depending on if you’re pro-development or anti-growth you probably had strong feelings about the Hines Group tearing down the historic Utah Theater at 150 South Main Street to build an apartment tower. Now the developer is putting a pause on the project and wants to fill in the gap on the street with a parking lot until they actually launch their project and bring in the construction crews. They got a sweet deal from the RDA-‘buying’ the property from Salt Lake City for zero bucks in exchange for building new housing with plans for public amenities in and around the building but have postponed plans now for two years with what they allege are the high costs of construction.