Salt Lake City: Official Development News Thread - Part 3 - Page 33

Future Mayor · #**641** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 4:38 PM**

I know others don't agree with my opinion, but I think the Salt Palace is in an excellent location, and I think that is one of the things that makes it appealing for conventions to book at the CLRSPCC. It's obviously not the initials that make it appealing.

It's in the heart of downtown, surrounded by hotels, shopping, restaurants, events and cultural activities. When the convention hotel gets built on the RWP site the connection that seems to be missing from East to west will be complete on 200 S, once the LDS church develops the Medals Plaza parking lot the same connection will be completed on S. Temple(with Trax this connection doesn't really seem to be lacking anyway). Once the owners of Arrow Press Square can get it through their heads that the convention hotel won't fit on their property and decide to sell and allow it to be redeveloped, then the W. Temple corridor will be complete. Add in the downtown street car on 200 S, and the SP is an even more attractive convention center than it already is.

Moving it to a new location, for instance abutting I-15 north or N. Temple, and west of the railroad tracks, would kill our convention business.

goldcntry · #**642** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 6:11 PM**

I've got to echo FM on the Salt Palace. I've been to many conventions around the country and always enjoyed the layout and walk-a-bility of the Salt Palace, especially in relationship to downtown. Minneapolis ranks very high on my list of convention/hotels/attractions ratio. While Kansas City has a great structure for the convention center and is surrounded by hotels, there is nothing around it. I feel that the Salt Palace is well situated for conventions and could be in the top 5 convention centers in the country... IF... it had enough hotel space. It doesn't. Period. End of debate.

In regards to the possible public funding for a convention hotel, I find the arguments from various county board members laughible. I feel that as long as the County is demanding that a future convention hotel facility allow free/reduced parking at the County's behest, then it makes absolute sense for the County to make available bonds, backing, etc. If they're going to meddle in free-enterprise and make mandates on developers, they can dang well help pay for it!

Okay... time to hide my soapbox and go back to lurk-dom...

joscar · #**643** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 6:24 PM**

Not really sure which thread in the forum this fits into, so I'll just post it here.

According to Gallup, Utah leads the nation in what will be the best places to live in the future. Here the link: Utah Poised to Be the Best U.S. State to Live In

P.S., can I say really like the photo in the info box on Salt Lake's Wikipedia article:

SLC Projects · #**644** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 6:41 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottharding

Republicans hold the key to vote on city’s mega-theater, or in other words, not likely to happen:

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54...uncil.html.csp

Why the hell are we even putting this to a vote when I thought everybody agreed we need this theater? Sheesh...this is why the biggest projects take at least ten years to get built is because all the bullshit games our leaders have to play. How about you leaders quit bullshiting and just allow this thing to get built already and quit wasting everybodys time. It's no wonder SLC is so far behind the rest of the world. It's 2012 and we don't even have a boardway theater or 1000 room hotel yet.

Makid · #**645** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 6:56 PM**

Projects, the theater is being built. The vote is whether or not Salt Lake County will be a partner in the project.

If they aren't a partner, Salt Lake City has contingency plans ready to go. It does mean that there will be a possible financial shortfall but they have ideas in place to fill the void if it occurs.

Makid · #**646** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 7:01 PM**

It is possible that this time next year we will have new projects to follow:

1st South, 2nd East building
Convention Hotel
Theater
Theater Tower (At least the base)
2 Hotels just south of ESA

There are a couple of others that I know I have missed, but the amount of development occurring within SLC is great.

scottharding · #**647** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 7:46 PM**

The article says that if the county does not partner on the theatre project, then the project will be scaled down. My guess is that means we'd get just the theatre without the tower or great improvements to Regent Street.

Future Mayor · #**648** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 7:51 PM**

Hopefully, if that is that case, the design will still include the base of the tower, similar to The Cascade and that a developer could come along down the road and build the tower.

Makid · #**649** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 8:17 PM**

The cost of the theater $110M doesn't include the cost of the tower. That is separate from the theater and will be entirely privately funded.

The scaling back part I think would be the improvements to Regent Street. But without the County, it is possible that the improvements might only be delayed in the short term.

I would expect that the tower would either be under construction at the same time as the theater or at least built to a podium level for a resumption of construction once the market demands.

T-Mac · #**650** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 8:40 PM**

My understanding was that Hamilton Partners was going to do the tower. I remember thinking that it would be pretty cool if they called it 111 S Main.

Lilljemalm · #**651** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 9:16 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by chad.farnes

Funny you mention this because I have recently been trying to decide whether to get a permanent job (as in a career) in Salt Lake City or in Denver. I went to Denver and I do have to say that I did downtown Denver a lot more than Salt Lake. However, what killed me was how far away the mountains were. In most places where I drove you couldn't even see them, and if you could, they looked like hills on the horizon. I love the outdoors and the proximity to the mountains in SLC definitely sold me on staying here over moving to Denver.

I went to college in SLC, then lived in Atlanta, Seattle, Denver and Phoenix. I enjoyed SLC far better than Denver (though I was in Denver 11 years). Denver's downtown is good, but not as good as Seattle's was. I think that downtown Denver's success has more to do with there being so little to do in the suburbs more than anything else. SLC has spread its "things to do" all up and down the Wasatch Front. Seattle has things to do spread out, too. I worked in downtown Denver. The cultural scene in Denver wasn't that well developed when compared to SLC and Seattle. It was mostly based on the mass consumption of beer, resulting in a lack of diversity in cultural attractions. The never ending wind drove me nuts, too. Denver was OK, but that was all. Most of my co-workers who skiied found it more affordable to fly to SLC and stay in the valley, skiing a different resort each day than it was to spend a week in CO's resorts, which are all a very distant from Denver (2 to 6 hours away). A governor we had there a few years back said that Colorado was very good at marketing a substandard product when it came to skiing. Ouch!

scottharding · #**652** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 9:19 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makid

The cost of the theater $110M doesn't include the cost of the tower. That is separate from the theater and will be entirely privately funded.

The scaling back part I think would be the improvements to Regent Street. But without the County, it is possible that the improvements might only be delayed in the short term.

I would expect that the tower would either be under construction at the same time as the theater or at least built to a podium level for a resumption of construction once the market demands.

You're probably right. Interestingly, one of my good friends from high school was just brought to Salt Lake to be the senior analyst for Goldman Sachs. He said that right now one of his assignments is an immediate $10 million+ that they're investing in downtown SLC. He didn't say more, but I intend to prod. I wonder if it is regarding this project.

SLC Projects · #**653** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 11:32 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makid

Projects, the theater is being built. The vote is whether or not Salt Lake County will be a partner in the project.

If they aren't a partner, Salt Lake City has contingency plans ready to go. It does mean that there will be a possible financial shortfall but they have ideas in place to fill the void if it occurs.

My concern is that all this will do is further delay this project. To be honest I don't think the county can fund BOTH the theater AND the Hotel at around the same time. I think the county should focus on the Hotel and the city focus on the theater.

SLC Projects · #**654** Posted: **Aug 7, 2012, 11:34 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by T-Mac

My understanding was that Hamilton Partners was going to do the tower. I remember thinking that it would be pretty cool if they called it 111 S Main.

You're right T-Mac, this tower will be built by H.P. ( and of course we all look forward to your weekly photo updates of it's construction when the time comes. )

Now it was my understanding that the theater will be paid for by the city and the tower will be paid for by H.P.
Hopefully the two groups will have the funding in place around the same time so that way we don't have to do this in phases.

Just had an idea. If the Office demand isn't big enough yet to justify a new office tower then what if the new H.P. tower becomes the 1000+ hotel since the demand for more hotel space is already here. How cool would it be to have another large hotel on Main street. Yea, I know, it will never happen. But it would kill two birds with one stone.

SandSailor · #**655** Posted: **Aug 8, 2012, 3:15 AM**

"The cultural scene in Denver wasn't that well developed when compared to SLC "

Come on now! This is truly just not the case! You guys can make all sorts of outrageous claims about slc, but it just DOES NOT have more cultural sites downtown! This is truly ridiculous! Slam me and call me names all you want, but at least I am not trying to make my city into something it is not, or make false claims!

SandSailor · #**656** Posted: **Aug 8, 2012, 3:16 AM**

"The cultural scene in Denver wasn't that well developed when compared to SLC "

Come on now! This is truly just not the case! You guys can make all sorts of outrageous claims about slc, but it just DOES NOT have more cultural sites downtown! This is truly ridiculous! Slam me and call me names all you want, but at least I am not trying to make my city into something it is not, or make false claims!

skyguy414 · #**657** Posted: **Aug 8, 2012, 3:25 AM**

EDIT: I originally meant to post this in the airport thread, but posted it here by mistake. Moved to airport thread:http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show....php?p=5791356 My bad.

ajiuO · #**658** Posted: **Aug 8, 2012, 3:27 AM**

I've never been to Denver but from what I understand there is so much cigaret smoke everywhere that it is almost intolerable.

Makid · #**659** Posted: **Aug 8, 2012, 3:37 AM**

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54...ilman.html.csp

County wants more analysis before partnering on mega-theater
Debt Review Council will take a week or two to scrutinize deal.

Quote:

It was designed to be so inviting the Salt Lake County Council couldn’t say "no."

But when the nine-member board unwrapped Salt Lake City’s partnership proposal Tuesday for a Broadway-style theater downtown, the County Council didn’t give a "yes." It was more of a "maybe."

Quote:

Councilman Jim Bradley, however, warned his colleagues that they may be sorry if they don’t partner up with Salt Lake City on such a sweet deal. He was successful in getting DeBry to amend his motion to include an analysis of what Salt Lake County could lose by not buying in.

"It seems like Salt Lake County is getting a hell of a deal here," Bradley said.

Looks like another week or 2 before we know if the County will join SLC or not.

Stenar · #**660** Posted: **Aug 8, 2012, 4:21 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by SandSailor

"The cultural scene in Denver wasn't that well developed when compared to SLC "

Come on now! This is truly just not the case! You guys can make all sorts of outrageous claims about slc, but it just DOES NOT have more cultural sites downtown! This is truly ridiculous! Slam me and call me names all you want, but at least I am not trying to make my city into something it is not, or make false claims!

The Mormon pioneers were very involved in the arts and established a lot of great cultural organizations over the years which that culture they developed has lasted to the present. Most other towns during that time period were just filled with saloons. So, yes, SLC probably does have a much richer cultural legacy than Denver.

For example, one of the first things the pioneers did when they came to SLC was establish the Salt Lake Theatre. That's just one example too numerous to count. The University of Utah was the first university in the nation to have a modern dance program and BYU is heavily involved in ballroom dance. If you watch shows like SYTYCD, there are always numerous Utahns on that show and every other talent show in America.