A Salt Lake City-based private equity firm submitted plans on Monday to rezone its 2.19 acres of land near Downtown, with high-level plans to replace an office building and surface parking lot with a new skyline-altering high-rise and hundreds of residential units.
Raven One, LLC, a company owned by Cumming Capital Management, made the request on Monday for the city to rezone its property at 265 E. 100 S. from Residential-Mixed Use to Downtown-1. Such a move would allow the investor to build a high-rise matching others recently added to the capital city’s Downtown core.
While it’s early, the materials Raven One submitted in its rezone request show an interest in building up and adding around 500 housing units.
Conceptual renderings for the corner building appear to show a high-rise with at least 21 stories, some of them double-height. A second, seven-story building would sit across from the high-rise, separated by an elevated courtyard in the middle.
The company said in its application that the rezone would allow it to benefit from other major work aimed at revitalizing Downtown by bringing more residents near the heart of the city. It suggested it would add mixed-use real estate.
D-1 zoning allows unlimited heights, but a minimum of at least 100 feet, or about nine stories. (Though a developer has already shown that there are exceptions to the Downtown height minimum.)
Raven One’s current R-MU zoning, meanwhile, allows for buildings of 75 feet by right or up to 95 feet if the developer gets approval through the city’s design review process.
Raven One showed a conceptual rendering of what it could build under the existing zoning, with a six-story building taking up the entire 2.19 acres and a large courtyard in the middle. That style of development is known as a “Texas Donut.”
A presentation included in the rezone request showed that Cumming is considering adding a mix of rental and for-sale housing units attainable to a range of incomes.
While any eventual project could shift depending on the market, Cumming included a rendering that showed a range of one-, two- and three-bedroom units throughout the development, along with space for plazas, retail and restaurants.
They said they would put parking underground and would target a 1 to 1 parking ratio.
A high-end new development in that location would actually stand out amid a cluster of low-income housing.
The rezone request will test the city’s willingness to expand its central city core, and it currently has interest from investors who own land south and east of the D-1 boundary to rezone their properties, as well.
The City Council recently agreed to rezone the Sears Block between 700 South and 800 South State Street to D-1 zoning to make way for a new hospital by Intermountain Health.
Such a rezone would add value to the land itself, giving a windfall to the investors who own the land. The city has shown a desire in recent years to extract public benefits in exchange for the value given to the investors.
Cumming Capital Management is perhaps lesser known as the owner of POWDR Corp., the outdoor company that owns the local ski resorts Snowbird and Woodward, along with other outdoor resorts.
Cumming has hired the Orem-based development company Silverado Development to oversee the entitlement process.
Renderings submitted with the application were created by Method Studio.
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