A rendering of Mercy Housing’s development at the Fleet Block. Image via Ratio Design
After years of sitting vacant and later becoming a memorial space for people killed by police, Salt Lake City’s Fleet Block now has two affordable housing developers slated to build mixed-use projects on the block’s northern edge that would include retail space and community assets along the borders of the Granary District and Central 9th.
On Thursday, city officials announced they selected Brinshore Development and Mercy Housing to develop the northwest and northeast sites of the block, respectively. Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said Thursday the city received proposals from across the country to develop the block before choosing Brinshore and Mercy.
“These developers have proven that they know how to build community-focused development that works for families, and I’m so excited to see them being able to do that right here on our Fleet Block,” Mendenhall said.
Mendenhall emphasized how the future Fleet Block would include midblock walkways that will provide a better connected community. She said the block in the past has been entirely walled off and was a barrier between the Central 9th and Granary neighborhoods.
She reiterated that the southeast corner of the block will be a community space, which is expected to pay homage to the murals of people killed by police that once adorned the block. Mendenhall said the city is still looking for public input on the public space, as a city survey is open until the end of August.
Brinshore is an Illinois-based affordable housing developer that has two LIHTC projects in the city under their belt, most recently opening the SPARK Apartments on North Temple. Mercy Housing is a California-based company that the city described as, “the nation’s largest nonprofit affordable housing provider,” in a press release Thursday.
Executives for both companies were on hand Thursday for a press event announcing the news. Shelly Marquez, president of Mercy Housing Mountain Plains, said Mercy is looking to bring in the YMCA as a tenant to their housing development, and the YMCA is included in renderings made public Thursday.
“We’re looking at bringing youth programming to the site,” Marquez said Thursday. “We’re looking at how we can address childcare needs in (this) partnership.”
David Brint, Brinshore Development’s co-founder, praised Mendenhall’s leadership and said Brinshore is happy to be a part of another project in the city, as it also was the developer behind the Aster at 265 S. State Street.
“So we are excited to be part of this process,” he said. “We’re grateful that we were selected, and we promise to do a really good job on this.”
Marquez said it will likely be some time before construction crews could begin work on either building, saying it always takes time to apply for LIHTC funds and get financing in order. She estimated that construction could begin sometime in Q4 2026 or Q1 2027, and she added the next year will be spent focusing on community engagement, the entitlement process and other pre-construction aspects.
Fleet Block developments are slated to be much taller than its surrounding neighbors, as the city’s recent mixed-use zoning overhaul has the block zoned as MU-11 — the tallest zone in the overhaul with a maximum height of 125 feet. Renderings made available Thursday show large residential developments.
Dan Nackerman, executive director of the Housing Authority of Salt Lake City, told Building Salt Lake that the HASLC is partnering with Brinshore to develop the Fleet Block’s northwestern parcel. The two organizations worked to build the SPARK Apartments. He said as of now, their Fleet Block plans call for using every bit of that height allowed by zoning.
“We’re proposing a 12 story building,” Nackerman told BSL. “In fact, we’re proposing two twin towers that are set at an angle, creating a big plaza space in the middle.”
He said the site plans are still early in the process and could evolve over time, but the proposal submitted to the city included over 200 housing units between the two towers as well as, “a whole lot of ground floor retail, restaurant, (and) public space as part of this whole block,” Nackerman said.
He added the HASLC is already planning to include a daycare center in the development, similar to the childcare space included in the SPARK Apartments project.
Renderings made public for Mercy’s parcel show mixed-use buildings of varying heights, with the projects ranging from shorter, six-story buildings to an 11-floor high rise. The minimum height in the MU-11 zone is 45 feet, and the buildings depicted in renderings appear to comfortably exceed that mark.
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