Quote:
Originally Posted by twig
I guess I'm in the minority then that think that even if we would have smaller blocks we still wouldn't have anything more or that much taller than what they currently are. I mean we have only really have ever had one real developer, and that is the church. And I don't ever see Cowboy doing anything more ambitious than they currently have already. So what has told us that we would have taller buildings if we had smaller blocks besides looking at other cities. I mean, we really aren't that big of a city, and we definitely don't have the same drive as Austin. I just don't see large blocks as being a huge reason as to why we don't have tall buildings. I think its just a small piece of the puzzle. Is it a problem? Yes! But its not the real reason as to why. There are plenty of US cities that have a crap ton of available land in their downtown but still have tall buildings. And I understand the idea that large blocks create this idea in developers heads that they need to do something different and creative to make a great pedestrian experience but what developers are actually caring about the pedestrian experience? More than half of all the development downtown doesn't even offer street level retail.
Its not the large blocks so much keeping demand out, its the lack of large companies willing to locate there. And you cannot say that its the lack of office space downtown, if there was really that many companies willing to move downtown then the buildings will come. That is how every city midsize city operates.
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I agree with you on the block size. Smaller blocks would have more streets but we would still have smaller buildings. We may actually have less high rises than we do now. We may have a lot more 8 to 10 story buildings but a lot less 12+ story buildings.
It is also possible that with smaller blocks, the zoning would be different and the minimum height would be shorter as well as there could not be a zoning issue against surface parking.
I tend to think that the large blocks will eventually lead to taller towers as they are easier to build on larger blocks. The current zoning is actually beneficial to this with the corner lots in the D1 encouraging height and the mid block encouraging mid-rises.
As I said in my post last night, we are seeing a turning point in that people are moving to SLC in large numbers. More and more people are moving in and developers are playing catch up. The only thing holding back the people are the number of units available. Even the rental rates aren't slowing them down.
What needs to happen is someone needs to look at what is slowing down the process of proposals through ground breaking. If it is something the City can address directly (Planning, Zoning, Design Review, etc.) to speed it up, the City needs to start looking into it now. If it is outside of its control, maybe it can start an enterprise fund or a corporate relocation fund to help encourage direct growth in the CBD that helps spur additional growth.
We know that Commercial growth increases Residential growth and that increases transportation growth which increases Commercial growth and so forth.
We can see a slightly accelerated version of this since the mid 90's:
Salt Palace Expansion
American Stores/Grand America/Olympic Bid Secured
Trax
Gateway
FrontRunner
City Creek Center
222
More Trax
More FrontRunner
S-Line
111
Eccles Theater
1st South Hotels (South Across from Arena)
AC Hotel
2nd South Apartments
Micro Marriott next to Holiday Inn Express
-Announced-
151 (Residential)
Tower 8 (Commercial)
This doesn't count the residential along 4th South, the main Library, or any of the thousands of other residential units that have been completed or are being built around downtown that are taking up available space.
It is this available space more than anything that has been main cause behind the lack of high rise building in SLC. Demand is there for high rise living but demand isn't fully there on property values and definitely on available land, land banker thinking aside.