Sugar House’s street cred — stamped out by a developer, a demolition and a near-depression — may be reborn.
Salt Lake City’s Redevelopment Agency has bought a vacant 30-foot-wide parcel that hugs the west end of the so-called "Sugar Hole," with a vision to create a permanent public pathway expected to lure pedestrians and resurrect the area’s street life.
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Sweetening the ‘Sugar Hole’
By ponying up the money to buy a 30-foot-wide parcel lining the west end of the so-called “Sugar Hole,” Salt Lake City’s Redevelopment Agency has ensured a mid-block public pathway — with retail storefronts on both sides — once developer Craig Mecham’s long-delayed Sugar House project is complete. The public alleyway will stretch from 2100 South (at 1078 East) south to a newly created “Elm Street” on the south end of Mecham’s retail and residential building.
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The mid-block crossing, stretching from 2100 South (at 1078 East) south to a soon-to-be-created "Elm Street," will have benches, trees and storefronts lining both sides. Negotiations played out privately for months before the City Council, sitting as the RDA Board, closed the deal in a 6-0 vote earlier this month.
"It will help redeem the block in the sense of replacing some of the pedestrian scale and access that happened when the old Sugar House was demolished," says City Councilman Luke Garrott, who aggressively pushed the purchase. "The idea is to make interesting places for pedestrians to be."
Garrott, along with Councilman Soren Simonsen, argued successfully that a public easement bisecting the old Granite Block essentially hinged on this deal.
"We were always too cheap to offer a price that was tempting to the owners," Garrott says. But the cash offer for the Sugar House property recently was sweetened to $350,000.
Under the terms, former parcel owner Rockwood Investment Associates will receive $85,000 for facade improvements and new windows on the east side of its Rockwood Furniture Building — the dilapidated brick box that is the first structure residents see on the west edge of the Sugar Hole. The idea is to fashion new storefronts on the east side of the building, which houses art galleries.
On the other side of the 30-foot-wide plaza, developer Craig Mecham plans to fill the vacant corner of 2100 South and Highland Drive with 204 apartments atop 44,000 square feet of retail and restaurant spaces as well as three levels of underground parking. The ground-level shops and eateries would front Highland Drive and 2100 South.
Mecham has now agreed to design windows and more storefronts — as well as access to the underground parking — on the west side of his long-stalled development.
"His retail can actually wrap around that corner to the mid-block crossing," explains RDA project manager Ed Butterfield. "It almost creates a second base to the building. And it really creates active uses on each side of the pathway and enhances the pedestrian experience."
Planners hope the alleyway will help diffuse the area’s dense traffic.
But will the vibrancy — zapped when the eclectic coffeehouse, head shop, music store and boutiques were bulldozed — return to a freshly landscaped public plaza?
Garrott says it depends on the retail that fronts it. There may not be another Blue Boutique, but he is optimistic.
"It gives the option for more varied pedestrian life," he says. "There’s value added. We lost so much and there was a high cost for so many in the community. This increases the potential for this incarnation of Sugar House to be successful."
RDA Executive Director D.J. Baxter says Mecham has committed to allowing public access on the south end of the project, though the exact configuration still is being worked out.
"We think it’s very significant," Baxter says about the purchase and public easement. "The community is excited about this concept, and we were glad to find an opportunity to make that happen."
The city also has agreed to relocate a section of the Jordan-Salt Lake Canal — which passes beneath the Rockwood Furniture Building — under the public pathway, so structural improvements can be made to that building.
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