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Holladay • A proposal presented last week that calls for a mix of shops and offices — but no apartments — in the Village Center development appears to have support in the community.
The majority of the approximately 75 residents at a City Council meeting on Aug. 4 raised their hands when asked if they preferred the proposal over a plan approved earlier this year that includes residential units. About a half-dozen liked the original plan.
The new proposal is the latest twist in a drawn-out effort to build a quaint village center at the intersection of Holladay Boulevard and Murray-Holladay Road. The City Council is considering dropping Cowboy Partners as developer, almost six years after the company won the bid for the project, in favor of Holladay Village Center 1 LLC and its alternate plan.
No decision has been made on whether to keep the Cowboy Partners plan or adopt the plan by Holladay Village Center 1, which is composed of Rimrock Construction, Rockworth Companies and members of the Melby family of Holladay.
Councilman Jim Palmer stressed that the new plan is just a concept at this point and would have to go through several levels of review if chosen.
At the Aug. 4 presentation, Tom Henriod, of Rockworth Companies, said the alternate plan calls for two brick buildings that are two stories high and have a traditional "Main Street" style. Half of the 42,400 square feet in the buildings would be retail space, and half would be office space. The center would have 100 stalls in a parking structure and 72 stalls on surface parking.
Rent would be about $15 per square foot for both retail and office space, Henriod said. Potential tenants include restaurants, boutiques, salons, dessert shops and professional and medical offices.
"Restaurants are the No. 1 target," Henriod said. "We want to promote outdoor seating."
If the plan is approved, Henriod thinks it would take about six months to line up financing and get permits, then nine months to complete the project after breaking ground.
The office-over-retail concept was popular but the design itself got some negative reviews. Several called it boring, and one resident said it is uninspiring. Mark Hurst, a former member of the Holladay Design Review Board, said if he were still on that body, "this [design] would be dead on arrival."
The Cowboy Partners design features two- or three-story buildings with ground-level shops topped by apartments. Residents unhappy with its density appealed approval of the plan, which they said had too little parking and too many apartments to be financially feasible.
Company Partners principal Dan Lofgren, who has been tweaking the design to meet the city's vision, says he's convinced his plan is the way to go but will "reluctantly" step aside if the council adopts another proposal. If the switch were made, Holladay would reimburse the company for its out-of-pocket costs so far on the project.
Lofgren, who did not attend the Aug. 4 meeting, has declined to say how much money his company has spent. Mayor Dennis Webb said the amount will be made public if there is a payout.
Holladay Village Center history
The City Council selected Cowboy Partners in November 2005 to develop an approximately 2-acre site where the now-razed Video Vern's building once stood, at the intersection of Holladay Boulevard and Murray-Holladay Road.
After the Holladay Planning Commission approved Cowboy Partners' conceptual plan, residents filed two appeals, the first in December 2009. The appeals asserted there were too many apartments, not enough parking and too little retail for the project to be financially successful.
The City Council denied the first appeal but as a concession, Lofgren agreed to drop the number of apartments from 80 to 75. A second appeal led the council to appoint an advisory committee of Holladay residents with real estate backgrounds to look at the project. Its report, issued in October, said the high number of apartments would threaten the viability of commercial tenants.
Holladay then hired Valda Tarbet, deputy director of the Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency, to review the project. Her verdict: Residential units included in the mix would boost the chances of success.
On Feb. 17, the City Council on a 4-2 vote denied the second appeal and approved a modified version of developer Cowboy Partners' original plan — this one with 58 apartments and up to 15,000 square feet of office space.
In April, Holladay Village Center 1 LLC approached the city with an alternative plan that calls for office space over shops but no apartments. What's next
I Public comment on a proposed development of shops topped by office space for the downtown Holladay Village Center project will be taken at a joint meeting of the City Council and the Redevelopment Agency Board on Aug. 11. The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Mt. Olympus Room at City Hall, 4580 S. 2300 East.
On Aug. 17, an open house on the plan is scheduled for 6:30 to 9 p.m. in the Big Cottonwood Room at City Hall. The council is considering adopting the offices-over-shops proposal and scrapping the apartments-over-shops plan it approved earlier this year.