This long-forsaken patch of Salt Lake City borders a once-raunchy red-light district known as the "Stockade." And that was its high point.

Welcome to curiously named "Salt Lake Central," a new TRAX station near 300 South and 600 West that will serve as the nexus for thousands of FrontRunner riders whose first view of the capital could be disconcerting.

Despite the neighborhood's nadir, the trains arrive next week, ferrying their cargo of debit-card carrying commuters.

Developers argue the gritty strip is gold. They have pledged hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, night clubs and even a Ferris wheel - designed after the famous entertainment hub in the heart of Copenhagen, Denmark, called Tivoli Gardens.

One builder envisions a Barcelona-like Las Ramblas - complete with commerce that flowers as often as its plants - across the street from the transit hub where debris and disrepair dominate the shadow of Rio Grande Depot.

But those promises came four years ago and seem further off than ever. Now, people who lease or live in the area - many still are skittish over a crack-cocaine outbreak - offer mixed messages on whether the grand gentrification is realistic.

Still, city bosses expect a transit-fueled rebirth of the squalid site that last thrived as an ethnic enclave during the heyday of the railroad.

Call it the boulevard of bottled hope that a westward-bound city desperately wants to recycle.

Greektown grows up

Ushered by steam engines, the west-side locale once was loaded with immigrant communities - including Greektown and Lebanese Town, as well as Scandinavian staples like the Jensen Creamery and a Catholic convent. Most groups even had their own newspapers.

A century later, trains again could trigger a renaissance.

Adjacent to the hub, a similar 1910 freight house rests by the corner of 600 West and 200 South. Utah Heritage Foundation Executive Director Kirk Huffaker is pushing to convert it into a year-round public market or a center for bicycle commuters, complete with lockers and showers.

"It seems like the poster child of good development for our city," Huffaker says. "It just needs a little shining up."

Utah Transit Authority officials aren't so sure. They have a demolition permit for the property, though the city has managed a 60-day moratorium. UTA owns 17 acres west of the hub where office space could replace a decrepit edifice. Transportation brass also may rehabilitate its nearby maintenance center into retail use.

Across 600 West to the east, The Summit Group hopes to plop a five-story Holiday Inn and an extended-stay Staybridge Suites (with tree-top terraces) on lots owned by the Redevelopment Agency and Intermountain Furniture.

The developer is courting city approval to extend Eccles Avenue - at 225 South - to connect 500 West with 600 West to help service the hotels. Summit also has plotted a two-story parking garage, restaurant and 31,000 square feet of retail to include a Kinkos and FedEx.

"I remember when Second South was notorious," says Alan Cohen, who is negotiating to sell the 80-year-old Intermountain Furniture space around the corner. "Over the next two or three years, you won't recognize it."

On the east side of the block, just south of the new ArtSpace, Ryan Salter wants to transform the Beehive Brick Building into 80 loft-style condos priced in the low-$200s.

"We want to keep them on the lower end," he says about "Occam Lofts," named after the philosophical principle that the simplest solution is best.

Salter says proximity to both light and heavy rail could prove key to his success. "It's absolutely fundamental. That's why I picked that spot."

Not holding our breath'

But the future of another block remains a mystery.

North of 200 South's new Greektown TRAX station, mothballed buildings litter partially empty lots. Neighbors complain owner Phil McCarthey - who once boasted about the Copenhagen-like Tivoli - is land-banking. McCarthey did not return multiple calls for comment on this story.

Perhaps the boldest change could come east of The Gateway on the block bordering the new 400 West Planetarium TRAX stop and 300 West.

Property-owner Richard Gordon, who is unveiling the Westgate Lofts on 200 South, is working with city planners to dice the block into four chunks - complete with two new through streets. He wants to add shops, bistros, offices and more lofts when Utah Paperbox makes its move to Glendale in four years.

And a boutique hotel, perhaps a W, is planned by a Las Vegas development group that recently bought 3 acres on the block's northern end.

Gordon says the goal is to make the once-impenetrable parcel walkable. "We'll tie comfortably into the mall and the convention center and the arena," he predicts, "so it ties these four blocks together."

Despite the ambitious agenda, skeptics abound.

"We're going to hold our breath," says Richard Thomas, whose engine-parts company, persevering in the gut of old Greektown since 1930, is a postcard to the past.

Transit has robbed Thomas of his parking stalls and spiked his property tax. But as of yet, the Thomas Electric Co. owner has resisted the urge to cash it in, hoping to cash out. Still, he worries the nearby homeless shelter could prove the biggest obstacle to any overhaul.

"We kind of feel like we've been encroached upon down here, but what can you do?"

Is it safe?

Nearby business people want to bolt, but not because of the construction.

"If I could get the hell out of here, I would," says a man who wished to remain anonymous, sensitive about his lease agreement. "It's not the best of neighborhoods - if you haven't noticed."

At Addicted Coffee on 200 South, employees are afraid to leave their cars out of sight after dark.

"When the sun goes down, it becomes a dead-end part of town," says Bretton Faucett while prepping a latte. "It's a haven for junkies."

Even so, ownership is planning to push the shop's 8 p.m. closing, gambling on the train traffic.

But the scene around the FrontRunner stop could be a shock to travelers.

At the soon-to-be-buzzing transit hub, middle-aged drifters mingle with tattered teenagers - and drug handoffs are easy to spot.

On a recent afternoon, a bandana-clad hobo with a walking stick urinated just yards from the rails feeding Salt Lake Central.

The spot is not far from a planned Starbucks.

jensen@sltrib.com