Developers took the first steps Friday to turn one of Salt Lake City’s industrial sites into a collection of town houses that renters might start calling home.
The new development — theYARD, at 125 S. Navajo Street in Salt Lake City’s Poplar Grove neighborhood — will be the city’s first build-to-rent urban master-planned community, said Darlene Carter, CEO of the developing firm, The C.W. Group, at a groundbreaking event Friday.
The location is in the former home of a steel fabrication plant in what has been Salt Lake City’s industrial epicenter, Carter said. That’s bound to change, she said, with this project and other housing developments — as well as plans for the “Power District” campus, including a potential spot for a new baseball stadium.
The company, Carter said, expects its first renters to move in by the end of 2024.
Carter said theYARD is a way to add more housing to the city, and provide an option to people who want a larger space without the commitment of a 30-year mortgage.
(CW Land Co.) A rendering of the aerial view of theYARD, C.W. Urban's 8.58-acre build-to-rent development in Salt Lake City's Fairpark neighborhood.
“A rental community allows a variety of different residents in Utah to have more choice and types of housing that’s available to them, that is desperately needed in the missing middle housing sector,” Carter said. “It is in extremely high demand and extremely low supply.”
The complex, spanning 8.58 acres, is slated to contain 157 two- or three-bedroom town houses, with two-car garages and such amenities as walking trails, an outdoor pool, a picnic area, a clubhouse, green spaces, a community garden and a gym.
The site is two blocks south of the Fairpark TRAX Station, north of the I-80 corridor and adjacent to the Jordan River trail. It’s also close to some west-side landmarks, such as the Fisher Mansion and the Archie and Lois Archuleta Bridge.
The C.W. Group hasn’t pinned down rent prices yet, though, Carter said, “I imagine they’re going to be somewhere in the $2,000 [a month] range, and they’re going to range from 1,400 square feet to 1,800 square feet.”
Carter said the group hopes the town homes will be a good value proposition, and a good alternative to higher-density buildings downtown.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah real estate development company C.W. Urban and city and county officials break ground on a 8.58-acre build-to-rent development called theYARD on Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. The transit-oriented community is located in the recently designated “Power District” near the Fairpark TRAX station and the Jordan River.
Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, one of the officials on hand for Friday’s groundbreaking, said projects like theYARD make “cool urban environments.”
Wilson said she was “impressed … with Salt Lake City’s deliberate action in building housing that’s affordable, and C.W.’s commitment to provide housing that’s a little bit different. … The range of housing options in Salt Lake County is so important, as we look at cracking the nut on that affordability.”
Alejandro Puy, who represents Poplar Grove as part of district 2 on the Salt Lake City Council, said it’s nice to see change happen in an area that holds so much significance for the city’s west side.
“It’s exciting,” Puy said, to see “curb-and-gutter” development in an industrial area that’s been closed for years, “to see the growth of our city in places where so many people never thought it could happen.”
Puy said he’s also excited to know families will have an alternative to the microunits that have been prevalent in recent west-side construction.
“We need more housing for families in our city,” Puy said.
Alixel Cabrera is a Report for America corps member and writes about the status of communities on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.
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