As Salt Lake City’s downtown skyline pushes upward, the latest tall tower in the works is raising some worries over its height and potential to shake and throw shade on a revered neighbor.
The residential tower could rise up to 225 feet, or between 15 and 23 stories, from a corner lot just east of historic St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, which is located at 231 E. 100 South in the Central City neighborhood.
The prominent Cumming family, which owns the commercial property on that northwest corner of 300 East and 100 South, is asking through an intermediary for the most intense zoning the city has, precisely so it can go big.
A spokesperson for Provo-based Silverado Management — representing a firm called Raven One LLC, which is, in turn, owned by Cumming Capital Management — is touting the 2.19-acre plot as one of the last major footprints available in Utah’s urban core to help solve one of the city’s most vexing challenges: a lack of housing.
David Hunter of Silverado Management said the owners have a longtime devotion to the health of downtown. The 1953-built office and residential building on the property now, Hunter said, would give way to a complex of up to 420 apartments, with 20% rented at more affordable rates and a smaller portion devoted to three bedrooms suitable for families.
“In their hearts,” he said of the Cumming family, which also owns Snowbird ski resort, “they want the very best for downtown Salt Lake. They’re impassioned about it.”
Worries from neighbors
(Salt Lake City) A site map with zoning of properties at and around the site of a proposed apartment tower at 265 E. 100 South in Salt Lake City, near St. Mark's Cathedral.
Neighbors that include the the Episcopal church to the west, however, say they’re taken aback by the scale of the proposed tower. They assert the construction threatens to rattle and disrupt the foundations of the adjacent 155-year-old cathedral.
Seismic risks to the historic church’s unreinforced brick and sandstone masonry “just cannot be contemplated,” the Rev. Elizabeth Hunter told the city’s planning commission last fall. “We’re concerned that with a building of that size, with pile driving and excavation and blasting, that it would have a serious impact.”
(Silverado/Method Studio via Salt Lake City) Rendering of some of the ground-floor amenities of a new apartment tower proposed at 265 E. 100 South in Salt Lake City, near St. Mark's Cathedral.
The apartment tower, planned with ground-floor businesses, is also sure to cast shadows on nearby properties, including a substantial solar panel array that Episcopal Church officials have installed for the sake of sustainability.
The planning commission has signed off by recommending approval of the rezoning request, which would change its current mixed-use label to the most height-permissive downtown zoning the city has available, known as Central Business District, or D1.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune) Leaders of St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, shown in 2017, are worried about the planned high-rise.
The City Council will have a final say in the coming weeks, and key council members are already signaling their reservations.
“This council and this city have been in the forefront of height and density,” City Council Chair Alejandro Puy told the developer. “But, ultimately, we are concerned about what the community is saying around your project.”
‘Hyper-aware’ of historic church
(Silverado/Method Studio via Salt Lake City) A rendering of the view looking northwest at a new apartment tower proposed at 265 E. 100 South in Salt Lake City, near St. Mark's Cathedral.
Hunter, the Silverado Management representative, said the project would deploy state-of-the-industry construction techniques to guarantee no seismic impacts on the church.
“We use only the biggest contractors in the state,” he said. “It’s people that have been building in downtown environments since the beginning of their companies, and we are hyper-aware of the significance of that church.”
Council member Eva Lopez Chavez, who represents District 4 spanning much of downtown, called for better plans to mitigate the loss of sunlight for the church’s substantial and recent investment in solar panels.
Hunter said possible solutions included paying to move or replace the panels or reimbursing the church financially for any losses.
“I don’t love your answer on that,” Lopez Chavez told him.
Council member Victoria Petro said that the developer was asking for the city’s most aggressive zoning with regard to height, while having “no real strategy.” The developer hasn’t given council members enough information, she said, to fully weigh the proposal.
She called for exploring the project with the existing zoning — and diminished height.
While Petro said she was thankful that wealthy property owners continued to build in the city, “the counterbalance to that is our neighbors who are feeling disenfranchised every day and need to be equally represented in this.”
Hunter said the mixed-use zoning already in place for the property would allow a building tall enough that would block the church’s panels.
Given that, he told the council, “the damage is done, and we’re going to block the church.”
“So then,” he continued, “why wouldn’t we try to solve the bigger problem and add more affordable housing in downtown Salt Lake?”
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