This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
To save their nickels for candy bars, young Van Turner and his Glendale buddies used to walk home from downtown instead of riding the bus. They would pass through Japan Town and then walk along the tracks, past warehouses and manufacturing centers whose walls curved to accommodate rail freight.
On Thursday, Turner, now chairman of the Salt Lake City Council, during an open house welcomed the coming juncture of two mass transit rail systems at the Salt Lake Intermodal Hub.
"Train service dictated what this area was all about," he said. "The west side was developed as a kind of a service center." Now that rail transit is coming together, he said, "this neighborhood is about to change. It will change dramatically."
On Monday, crews will start building a Utah Transit Authority TRAX line that will connect the current north-south terminus at the Arena Station with the transit hub at 300 South 600 West. The project is expected to take up to 18 months - and by then, UTA's Front Runner commuter rail service is expected to begin between Ogden and Salt Lake City.
The thousands of people who will pass through the station will amp up development of the Depot District, projected to be the state's most urban neighborhood. Turner and other city officials said the 19-block transit-oriented neighborhood between North Temple and 400 South, from 400 West to Interstate 15 could house up to 20,000 people who would live in rowhouses, townhomes and apartments next to - or atop - neighborhood shops and offices.
Turner said the development also could at last remove the barriers between downtown and the 30,000 people who live just west of I-15.
"It's just a beginning system," he said. "We've got a lot to do."
UTA spokesman Justin Jones said the entire six-block TRAX project, which wraps around The Gateway mall and includes improvements to city streets and utilities, will cost $45 million.
Construction will move south from 400 W. South Temple to 200 South, turn west to 600 West and then south to 300 South. UTA general manager John Inglish vowed the project won't hamper existing businesses the way TRAX construction on Main Street did in the late 1990s.
Traffic will move around The Gateway mall on streets narrowed to one lane each way. Once the utility and street work is done, rail construction will move to the middle of the streets.
An architectural rendering of the hub, which already houses the Greyhound station, shows a flashy multi-level building arranged around a curved plaza. Its design could change over time, depending on how the district develops, Jones said.
The entire project is expected to take another two-dozen years, and will eventually include a car rental office, bike rentals, a parking structure, taxi stand, cafe and other features, Jones said.
The project would seed an urban neighborhood in the city's one-time red light district.
Parks would take the place of backyards, and galleries, clubs, grocery stores, coffeehouses, restaurants and other retail would create the kind of neighborhoods cities such as Portland, Ore., have built along with their transit systems.
City officials have visited Portland many times for inspiration, Turner said. The Depot District, he said, will someday draw the same kind of attention.
"These old railroad yards are where we can build the city we want to be," he said. "Portland may be the model now, but soon we'll be the model."