Salt Lake City & MSA/CSA Rundown
City Hall, Eastside Downtown Salt Lake City
Quote:
Originally Posted by gillynova
Can someone explain to me why SLC's downtown is so short? Is it because it's next to the airport? It reminds me of San Jose but with less high rises.
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Excellent question, which local forum members often ask and complain about regularly as of late. This, particularly because Salt Lake City is one of a handful seemingly at or near the top of so many prestigious lists. Lists that include where to start a career, city of the future, highest quality of life, fastest growing this and that, blah, blah, etc...Salt Lake City is relatively compact as far as developable land, and total population. It has only been recently that the city proper itself has reached the 200,000 mark. However, it's vast and expanding MSA/CSA is now well over 2.5 million and climbing at a rapid clip. Much of the impressive growth of it's top of the lists job market focuses on building lavish office campuses throughout it's metro. These business parks are convenient to the many smaller adjoining cities that make up the "Wasatch Front CSA".
The close proximity of Downtown Salt Lake to its International Airport has no effect in impeding it's CBD's vertical growth. If anything, it's convenient close proximity will continue to push the growth envelope of Salt Lake City, and Downtown itself. Salt Lake City's northwestern perimeter and most of it's Northern CSA, along with it's International Airport, basically sits on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. The take off patterns of much of the departures at the Delta hub are over a vast body of water. The arrivals quietly glide in over the western reaches of the Salt Lake Valley, typically from south to north. Of course there are variations, but all of the normal would-be physical impediments are a mute point, and contained over an innocuous booming sector. That sector being either horizontal warehousing, manufacturing and distribution or an empty small portion of the Great Salt Lake body of water itself.
The good news is that the explosive growth of the Wasatch Front CSA, combined with large natural barriers of mountains and lakes is creating a definite amount of pressure on it's Capital of Salt Lake City to be more "Urban Centric." Salt Lake City proper functions as the cultural and business heart of its much larger contiguous CSA and vast Intermountain Region. Given the renewed emphasis on urban density to the regions heart, Salt Lake City itself can conceivably reach an eventual population of more than 4 or 5 hundred thousand within it's limited boundaries. This, even if it doesn't annex some of it's underdeveloped immediate neighbors, which are now also rapidly developing more density themselves.
Note: Family oriented, would be one of CSA Salt Lake City's quirks. This would probably be the number one factor that has challenged a more vertical Downtown CBD. While there is increasingly a growing single/dink/ and or empty nester affluent sector that would welcome high rise apartments, the family unit still rules the majority of the CSA population. Simply put, a typical couple with 3 to 4 or more children can still purchase a very lovely home, surrounded by a child friendly community, excellent schools and adj., out your front door, jaw dropping gorgeous scenery. All of this for a livable budget. When bread earners of a family unit have the option of a much bigger bang for their buck home in the burbs, and their home is still convenient to incredible recreation, then they're going to choose a suburban lifestyle. Developers have made it quite convenient for most families to live in a high quality of life neighborhood, and commute to a very or relatively convenient business park.
Salt Lake City has done a comparatively excellent job with it's infrastructure investment. The various modes of transportation via surface streets and mass transit to reach work throughout the greater CSA metro remain comparatively very convenient to per capita usage. One can live in one portion of the metro, yet by comparison to many of the fifty largest CSA's, conveniently commute via the many new upgraded surface streets, freeways and or parkways. Heavy emphasis has also been placed on the construction of commuter rail, and light-rail mass-transit. Impressively, much of the new business park and multi-unit residential development is now filling up alongside the considerable miles of mass transit tracks put into place over the past decade. Demand for Bus Rapid Transit is now gaining momentum and several game changing BRT projects are in various stages of planning and completion. Much of the CSA and Salt Lake City's smooother than average traffic flow is owed to its unusually wide streets. While these wide streets often present a challenge to urban walkability, the flip side is that they also are much easier to convert to multi-use. It is not unusual, even in the heart of Downtown to create multiple uses such as wider sidewalks, with ample outdoor café seating, landscaping, and water features. At the same time, it is possible to also include mass transit down the middle of the same street, with auto and even dedicated bike lanes thrown in.
Another related challenge to vertical height and street walkability, particularly in Downtown Salt Lake, is it's huge city blocks. These blocks are several times the size of most major metro downtown blocks. While this presents an ongoing challenge, it has also presented many unique opportunities with spectacular results. Dissecting and developing the interiors of these huge 10 acre blocks has given urban planners a mine field of creative opportunities. Anyone who has visited Salt Lake City's Downtown core recently, particularly the new City Creek Center, or even it's just opened follow-up of Regent St. South are awestruck by such development being possible in the historic heart of a Downtown. With the recent announcements of several upcoming large projects, one can assume that the design trend of dissecting blocks with new streets, shops, water features, and a general sense of European charm, is the fashion that will continue for the buildup of Downtown Salt Lake City.
Still, in the CSA burbs developers cannot keep up with the pace of demand for single detached homes. Time was when Utah's number one endless supply of youth was enough to keep the job supply in check. Now however, even the highest birth rate in the nation is not enough to keep up with the jobs demand. In the past, CSA Salt Lake City's high birth rate could generate an ample supply of home grown eager young professionals. Now however, Salt Lake's CSA is beginning to experience a major influx of In-Migration. Suddenly, Central Salt Lake Valley MSA is seemingly as if over night becoming majority Non-Mormon. Again, the area is very family friendly. Whether the family is Mormon or Non, it will often seek perceived suburban ideals, which are plentiful in this CSA. Realize that the majority of these burbs topography looks like the surroundings of a National Park when you step outside your door.
There is much good news however for urban geeks like ourselves. Salt Lake City Proper is experiencing mid-rise, multi-unit residential development at historic levels. Available land in the Downtown area is quickly filling up. This trend, given Salt Lake City's hemmed in boundaries, will naturally lead to increased vertical density. Thousand's of new residential units are either coming on line, are under construction, or are hitting the boards for city approval. These structures have not only rapidly increased in number, but their height has also increased over the past few seasons. Many local forum members have noted that the Downtown and City Central four story structures that were once common place two to three years ago, are now becoming six to ten floors. Major developers from the national markets such as Seattle, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, etc. are increasingly placing their markers on Salt Lake City's downtown investment. Provincial developers and financial institutions, who tend to be more conservative, are being joined by national and international business concerns that often have a broader investor reach and deeper pockets.
There will still continue to be a strong demand for lavish class A office space in Salt Lake's greater metro. Also, the strategic location of the Salt Lake City CSA will continue to exert major pressure on horizontal development in the manufacturing, warehousing and distribution fields. It is after all, the only major presence between Chicago, the Plains, Rockies and the West Coast, that offers same day ground distribution via rail and interstate highways. Salt Lake City is the literal geographic crossroads of the vast U.S.A. Western Region, and its surrounding major Metros. This contributes to the seemingly endless announcements of major corporations relocating and or expanding their million plus horizontal sq. ft. manufacturing and distribution headquarters to the greater Salt Lake City area.
One can argue, and many forum members often do, that the height of the buildings are not what is of paramount importance. Many will tell you that it's the infill and street presence that makes a city. That is in part very true. Where the rapid buildup of Salt Lake City has developed anew and or maintained it's historic charm, it is arguably one of the prettiest, cleanest major city centers in North America at street level. That said, the high rise residential and commercial market will continue to increase their announcements and continue to build taller. Corporate Centers such as Goldman Sachs will continue to increase their office presence downtown, and their towers will grow taller as land availability shrinks. Right now, there is a seeming dam holding a backlog of proposals for major towers, some of which will hopefully be new tallests. Many think this dam is about to burst, given Salt Lake City's continued high flying job market. If local and national financial trends continue, then the dam will probably burst, and we'll see a sudden flurry of tower construction.
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