City to lead educational tour of Central City Historic District

The Salt Lake City Planning Department is inviting residents to participate in a walking tour of one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, the Central City Historic District, a two-block-wide district bounded by 700 East and 500 East and South Temple to Liberty Park.
The tour will focus and historic preservation and will start below the water tower at Trolley Square at 6:30 p.m. on September 24 and is the fourth and final tour in the city’s 2018 Summer Planning Series.
According to the city, participants will see examples of existing buildings that have been adapted for new uses, rehabilitated for modern living, and restored, as well as new construction in historic neighborhoods.
Planning staff selected the Central City Historic District’s for distinctive urban design characteristics and its historic structures. The tour will look at examples of adaptive reuse, rehabilitation and infill development with a discussion of the neighborhood’s positive design aspects, how historic neighborhoods can grow while retaining their character and how city planning staff use tools such as zoning regulations and historic district design guidelines to shape new development and rehabilitation.
“Historic districts help us understand the identity and image of our city and relate to our collective past, present, and future,” wrote planning staff in the event description.
The Central City Historic District is experiencing a bevy of new and future growth including the now-under-construction, Hardison Apartments at 500 East and South Temple, the proposed Liberty Square Townhomes at the 600 East block of 600 South and the planned renovation and residential expansion of Trolley Square.
This is the inaugural year of the Summer Planning Series. To city launched the program to help city residents to better understand the city’s zoning and approval process, historic preservation and how the city works to guide new development.
Monday’s tour is the second to look at historic preservation. Planning staff led a tour of the Marmalade neighborhood in July. Other ours looked at Form-Based Code in the Central Ninth neighborhood and walkability in the 9th and 9th neighborhood.