Reliable as cicadas, grand plans for urban renewal in the heart of Salt Lake City seem to hatch every 10 years or so.Notions of multimillion-dollar redevelopments over multiple downtown blocks with visions of economic transformation have pulsed each decade at least since the late 1960s, when the overhaul that flattened most of Japantown paved the way for the Salt Palace Convention Center.Just what light that recurring pattern shines on the city’s latest downtown debate over creating a taxpayer-funded sports, entertainment, culture and convention district on three blocks east of the Delta Center, depends on your perspective.(Smith Entertainment Group) A site plan for a proposed downtown sports and entertainment district.Key contours of the multibillion-dollar project pursued by Smith Entertainment Group, owners of the Utah Jazz and a new NHL team, have been endorsed by the City Council and are now under review by a state committee, before a council vote on a half-a-percentage-point sales tax hike to pump $900 million into the district.A Salt Lake Tribune story, published July 21, explored what long-standing challenges such a district could help address in the city’s core, including the prospect of making it more livable, more walkable and greener for a dramatically rising residential population.The SEG vision also promises urban revitalization, echoing so many past proposals for transforming portions of the city center, dubbed Utah’s living room.Depending on how you count them, this latest one marks at least the seventh large-scale downtown overhaul to come along since the post-World War II housing boom and an ensuing mid-20th century flight to the suburbs — each driven by its own economic trends and demographics.
In detailing the projected economic impact of the SEG plan, Natalie Gochnour, senior economist with University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, likened the new district to the latest leg in a relay race, with each generation taking its turn at city-building.Only through consistent commitment to investing in landmark, often public-private development projects downtown, she said, has Utah’s capital fought off urban decay …
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