Tony SemeradPassersby may be noticing a broad piece of sky opened up at the busy Salt Lake City intersection of 700 East and 500 South.
Demolition crews have all but flattened a six-story 1980s-era commercial building on the northwest corner to make way for what is to be a mid-rise luxury student housing project, tentatively called Trolley North.
(Salt Lake City Planning Department) The former offices of Utah's School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, located at about 675 E. 500 South. The building, seen here in 2022, is being demolished to make way for luxury student housing.
The work is doing away with the office complex familiar for its red-brown brick veneer and dark-tinted glass exterior. It once housed offices for Xerox and what was previously known as the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, or SITLA.
As of Thursday, wreckage of concrete chunks and twisted metal remained piled on the 1.48-acre spot as it was being cleared out by two hydraulic excavators. A restaurant building located just to the north — once home to Big Daddy’s Pizza and Fendall’s Ice Cream before that — was authorized for demolition in mid-2023.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Workers demolish the office building at 700 East and 500 South in Salt Lake City on May 28, 2026.
The office complex tear-down down has expanded visual horizons north and west from that intersection where heavily trafficked 700 East wends past Trolley Square shopping center.
The new sense of openness along that stretch is made more pronounced by the late March removal of a string of mature trees along 700 East in front of the main entrance to Trolley Square, which city experts said were in declining health. Those have been replaced by smaller trees, landscaping and safety upgrades.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Stumps that were left behind after trees were cut down along 700 East by Trolley Square in Salt Lake City, Friday, April 10, 2026.
But if things go to plan, the busy intersection — portions of which remain buffered by traffic barriers — won’t look the way it does now for long.
After over five years of the project being on the drawing board, a developer called Kayne Anderson is launching construction of Trolley North, billed as a luxury off-campus student living community.
It is to have at least 195 dwellings, many of them with two bedrooms or more, spread over two buildings reaching seven and eight stories tall.
(Salt Lake City Planning Department) Rendering from a southeast perspective of a luxury student housing complex with 195 units to be built at 675 E. 500 South in Salt Lake City.
Partners with Kayne Anderson, based in Florida, could not be reached this week. A Minneapolis architectural firm involved in designing the complex, BKV Group, says on its website the complex will also have a three-level parking garage with 330-plus stalls and about 3,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor.
The property, within walking distance of a TRAX light rail stop on 400 South, falls within the city’s Central City historic district. Renderings submitted at City Hall in 2023 show the lower levels creating a brick-clad and pedestrian-friendly podium, with five lighter-colored stories of dwellings and amenities above.
Along with a ground-floor lobby and retail spaces, according to city documents, the building will have a fourth-floor rooftop deck, a gym, a sky lounge and a co-working area.
Correction • June 5, 10 a.m.: This story was updated to correct the name of the developer of Trolley North.
