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Doomsday. End times. Whatever apocalyptic term you prefer to pronounce the end of the world, it has been written in reference to Dec. 21, 2012 — the date the Mayan calendar marks the end of a 5,126-year era.
Predicted thousands of years ago by ancient Maya societies, the doom-laden date has reached pop-culture status and rendered comparisons to the Y2K hype.
But a year from now, the outlook for Salt Lake City appears anything but ominous. Instead, 2012 promises to deliver a capital boom — if not an urban revolution — that perhaps has not seen its equal since Mormon pioneers first fashioned a city out of the Great Basin desert.
In March, the LDS Church opens City Creek Center, a $2 billion retail, restaurant and residential mega-development, destined to recharge Utah's metropolitan heart.
Construction also will be visible next year on a Sugar House streetcar, a North Temple makeover — bisected by a TRAX train to the international airport — two new libraries, a federal courthouse, a $125 million public-safety headquarters, downtown housing projects and a $110 million touring Broadway theater.
Urban planners say the level of private and public investment is remarkable, especially given the limping economy.
Extra drama over the 2012 doomsday stems from the stars. On 12/21/12 — the winter solstice — the sun aligns with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years. Scientists say that will disrupt the energy streaming to Earth.
But, as the following list shows, Utah's capital — if it's still here a year from now — will be engulfed by its own kinetic energy as the stars align for agame-changing renaissance.
City Creek Center
Opens March 22, 2012
Downtown window shopping is about to get a lot richer — from Brooks Brothers suits to Tiffany diamonds to Cheesecake Factory desserts.
Boasting 80 specialty stores and restaurants, hundreds of housing units in four towers and a Harmons grocery, City Creek Center spans 700,000 square feet on the two city blocks that once housed Crossroads Mall and ZCMI Center. Connected by a sky bridge over Main Street, it has 18-foot waterfalls, retractable glass roofs and a stream — re-creating City Creek — running through it.
Anchored by Nordstrom and Macy's, City Creek should reshape and reboot Salt Lake City's sometimes-sleepy downtown.
"The significance of this project is beyond its financial scale," says Stephen Goldsmith, a former Salt Lake City planning director and an associate professor of planning and architecture at the University of Utah. In placing hundreds of souls downtown 24-7, rather than simply trying to lure shoppers, City Creek resets the urban rubric, Goldsmith says, by adding energy.
"It will place Salt Lake City in the cross hairs as one of the finest developing cities in the country."
Under construction for five years, it remains one of the nation's largest downtown commercial-development ventures.
True to its "Mormon Mall" moniker, City Creek's shops won't be open on Sundays.But restaurants, through a labyrinthine legal deal, will be able to open on the Sabbath and serve alcohol every day.
Utah Performing Arts Center
Design begins in 2012
The Tony-winning "Book of Mormon" musical a block from Temple Square? Bet on it.
Mayor Ralph Becker's touring Broadway theater just notched millions in design cash and will nudge closer next year to eventual curtain calls just steps from an entrance to City Creek Center, likely on the southeast corner of 100 South and Main Street.
"Leveraging the new vitality of City Creek is this generation's centennial moment," proclaims Geralyn Dreyfous, founder of the Salt Lake City Film Center, which itself may gain a new home across the street in the shuttered Utah Theater.
The 2,500-seat playhouse is lauded by promoters, downtown business interests and City Hall. Yet, at $110 million, the theater has been just as vigorously lampooned by existing theater managers, tax watchdogs and performing-arts groups.
Whether a white elephant or a wonder, it's coming.
Also, a $33 million renovation of the Capitol Theatre, including construction of an adjoining Ballet West Academy, is slated to begin next year.
And, on related fronts, the spiffy Natural History Museum of Utah and The Leonardo, a science, technology and art museum on Library Square, debuted in late 2011.
Airport TRAX line
Completion expected 2012 or early 2013
Plenty of planners argued, unsuccessfully, that the airport connection should have been Utah's first light-rail train. Just over a decade later, TRAX finally is poised to ferry travelers of all stripes, sans car, between downtown and the Salt Lake City International Airport.
Tourism honchos predict the line will lure more skiers, more conventions and, therefore, more dollars.
Already in mid-2011, the light-rail spine grew two long-planned appendages — to West Valley City and the so-called mid-Jordan hub.
Sugar House streetcar
Construction begins in 2012
Trolleys aren't just for San Francisco anymore. Thanks to the feds, a slow-rolling streetcar will take form on an old railroad corridor, eventually linking the Sugar House business district to the Central Pointe TRAX station.
Run by Utah Transit Authority, the streetcar initially will be one of the new TRAX trains, painted a different color. Planners predict it also will be a "zipper" for neighborhoods spread along both sides of the 2230 South route.
Salt Lake City Councilman Soren Simonsen says building on the Sugar House and South Salt Lake assets will make the streetcar district one of the region's "premier urban neighborhoods." It has the same transformative potential, he says, as the Riverwalk in San Antonio and the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver.
By summer, construction could also begin atop the much-maligned "Sugar Hole" on the corner of 2100 South and Highland Drive. Developer Craig Mecham has a blueprint for a $53 million residential and retail building on the open parcel. A block east, Woodbury Corp. also will begin constructing its apartment building atop shops along with a public plaza and a dormitory expected to house Westminster College graduate students.
Public-safety headquarters
Construction to be visible throughout 2012
Dangled briefly by Becker as a building to fill the green space on Library Square, the $125 million police and fire headquarters is now under construction on the other side of 300 East.
Instead of a fortress, expect the ultimate green "net-zero" energy building with a modern architectural design, first-floor museum and a public courtyard, complete with Wi-Fi.
Federal courthouse
Construction continues, skyline to be altered in 2012
Port O'Call pints make way for courtroom gavels. The property on the northeast corner of 400 South and West Temple, long home to a cavernous, three-story bar, will soon house federal judges.
Besides displacing the bar, the courthouse relocated the historic Oddfellows Building, which was rolled, then pivoted to sit across the street.
Two blocks east, the six-floor Questar headquarters at 333 S. State opens in January 2012. And the $8.5 million makeover of the Gallivan Center wrapped last summer.
North Temple makeover
Construction continues in 2012
Shape up, mobile-home parks, fast-food joints and aging motels. And street walkers, move on. A "Grand Boulevard" is being designed along North Temple to turn the strip between downtown and the airport into an attractive city gateway.
Millions have been invested for new lighting, 10-foot sidewalks, landscaping and the newly opened viaduct. Planners hope the new TRAX train set to run in the middle of North Temple will bring new business, pedestrians and vibrancy.
"This is such a young city. My God, it's such a young city," Goldsmith, the urban planner, says. "We're beginning to make much better choices. All of these developments offer significant progress for this strange and peculiar metropolitan area that are going to put us in a position of welcoming diversity. All of that speaks to financial health."
Marmalade & Glendale libraries
Design and possible construction planned for 2012
In the works at least a decade, a Glendale library will give west-siders their own showcase building and cultural hub. The $8 million branch is sketched just off California Avenue and 1250 West.
A second branch in the Marmalade area is expected to rejuvenate one of the city's oldest neighborhoods near the northern entry point. The $8.9 million library will transform the vacant block between 500 North and 600 North on the east edge of 300 West. Designers want to surround it with shops, housing, eateries, a small market and an outdoor plaza.
Other projects taking form in 2012
New buildings to shadow the University of Utah campus;a north-end office building at The Gateway; renovation of a railroad building by the 600 West transit hub, perhaps into shops, eateries and housing; construction to commence on vacant State Street slums between 235 and 257 S. State St.; a mixed-income housing project on 100 South and 300 East; and a continued push for a year-round public market at the Rio Grande Depot.
NBA crown for the Utah Jazz
When? Probably not in 2012 — not even if Derrick Favors thrives and Josh Howard thrills.
And, if the Mayan calendar is correct, never.
Of course, if that cosmic energy really shifts, the billions invested in Salt Lake City will be for naught. But at least the city will look better going down.