Tall & Urban News

“There’s no question, Salt Lake City’s skyline is about to get higher and denser,” said Nick Norris, Salt Lake City’s planning director. “We are definitely going to see more high-rise development downtown in the near future.” Several skyscrapers are now under consideration or have cleared the city’s planning department, but none will surpass what is now the city’s tallest building.

Salt Lake City’s current tallest building — the Wells Fargo Center — stands at 422 feet (129 meters), just two feet (.6 meter) taller than the Church Office Building of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s an “urban legend” that buildings can’t be taller than the church’s office building, Norris said.

There isn’t a maximum building height in downtown’s Central Business District, though there are certain heights that trigger design review requirements.

Several high-rise projects have won a stamp of approval and are headed toward construction, including long-envisioned Salt Palace Convention Center Hotel on the northwest corner of 200 South and West Temple; Liberty Sky – a 24-story residential tower at 151 S. State; and Tower 8 – 28-story high-rise of pure office space at 95 S. State.

That means that very soon, Salt Lake visitors and residents can expect a flurry of construction in the heart of Utah’s capital to make way for the new skyscrapers. “This time next year, we’ll have four or five cranes” operating in the heart of the city, said Dee Brewer, executive director of the Downtown Alliance.

Brewer also hinted at some “preliminary conversations” with developers who have “other ambitious plans” for the area, though he said it was too soon to provide details. “In the next 10 years, the skyline of Salt Lake City will continue to change as the downtown area densifies and as more people live downtown,” he said.

As the face of an organization dedicated to downtown vibrancy, Brewer said skyscrapers are a welcome addition to Salt Lake City’s bustling business district. “Downtown is an appropriate place for that kind of densification,” he said. “It’s what makes great cities great cities.”

In 2016, Salt Lake City leaders updated the downtown master plan, after “extensive” public engagement, to decide how downtown should grow, and more skyscrapers are certainly a part of that plan. “Downtown has the infrastructure and amenities in place that support it growing and getting bigger,” Norris said “it reduces growth pressure in other parts of the city and, frankly, the region.”

The 725-room Salt Lake City Convention Hotel is slated to rise 28 stories. Construction is expected to begin later this year and finish in 2022. It will “anchor the southeast corner of the Salt Palace block to become a true urban complement of the downtown and a center of activity for the neighborhood surrounding the Convention Center,” developers John Portman and Associates wrote in preliminary plans. “The economic vision will be complemented by an elegant urban and architectural design that is compatible with the surrounding buildings while sensitive to becoming a new urban marker and presence on the skyline.”

Liberty Sky will be a 24-story, 262-foot (80-meter), 270-unit residential development. It will be Salt Lake City’s first skyscraper completely made up of residential rentals. The project is being developed by Cowboy Partners and Boyer Co. and designed by Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart and Stewart of Atlanta. “High energy, lifestyle-rich, walkable, uplifting and refreshingly modern are all very apt descriptions for Salt Lake’s most exciting residential undertaking in a long, long time,” designers wrote.

Tower 8 will be a 28-story, 395-foot (120-meter) office building, proposed by City Creek Reserve, a real estate arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is slated to become the city’s third-tallest skyscraper. Construction is expected to begin this year. According to architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, San Francisco office, Tower 8’s sweeping, curved and glassy design will be similar to another City Creek Reserve building designed by the same architects.

Block 67 is a proposed mixed-use, multi-building development envisioned as an “entertainment district” that will link the Vivint Arena and The Gateway to the downtown’s Central Business District. Its first phase expected to bring residential units and hotel rooms. Future phases include a second hotel with 400 rooms, a 473-unit residential tower, a 166-unit residential building, and a 416,000-square-foot (38,648 square meters) office tower.

“This is the historically ‘gritty part of town’ that is becoming refined,” developers wrote in planning documents. “We feel that the buildings that are designed for this site should be a composition of eclectic statements that could have evolved over time.”

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