City unveils revised design for women’s homeless resource center
After multiple open houses last fall, Salt Lake officials will again reach out to the public for feedback on two proposed homeless resource centers in preparation to go before the Salt Lake City Planning Commission for conditional use approvals. The city will host an open house on Wednesday, January 17th to allow local residents and businesses to have an opportunity to see the newly revised design of the resource center proposed for the 100 East block of 700 South.
Representatives from AJC Architects, Shelter the Homeless and Salt Lake City will be on hand to answer questions and address any concerns.
The open house will be held from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Liberty Senior Center at 251 East 700 South, just a block to the east of the site of one of the proposed resource centers.
According to city officials, the designs for the centers were revised after gathering input from workshops and public open houses last year. The designs focus on three themes, safety for both users and surrounding neighbors, design to mitigate potential negative effects and integration into the larger neighborhoods.
The 700 South resource center will occupy 2 acres and will replace what was previously a Deseret Industries and surface parking lot. The 61,229 square-foot center will be two stories and will house up to 200 women at a time.
The revised floor plans are nearly identical to the previous design which includes a ground floor with the 200 emergency beds, a large courtyard, dining area, beauty salon, kitchen, donation room, client services offices, clinical exam room, large hygiene room with showers and small retail area. The dining and intake areas will open to the courtyard.
The second floor would house a break room, conference room, offices and a computer workstation area. The only significant difference between the two designs is that the revised design includes a larger storage area and a smaller mechanical room on the second floor.
Construction will begin on the facility in June and is expected to be finished in June 2019.
