Construction begins on controversial 9th and 9th development
Despite over two years of contention between developers, residents and the city, the Beauty Supply Store in the 9th and 9th business district has been demolished. The building has been demolished to make way for the construction of a previously controversial, mixed-use residential project on the 900 East block of 900 South.
The project will be three-stories with two floors of residential above 4,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space, a residential lobby and a parking podium. The development will include 28 residential units, with a mix of one and two bedroom apartments, and 29 onsite parking spaces.
The Salt Lake City Planning Commission approved a Conditional Building and Site Design Review (CBSDR) for the mixed-use project in 2015. The current version of the project is nearly identical to the version the commission approved. The only significant modifications to the original proposal are changes to the unit counts, the number of parking stalls and commercial space.
The original proposal called for a three-story mixed-use building with two floors of residential above a ground floor parking structure with and 5,000 square feet of commercial space and a lobby/common area fronting 900 South. The project was originally going to consist of 28 residential units, mostly studio and one-bedroom units, and 25 onsite parking stalls.
The project first went before the Planning Commission in February of 2015. That meeting was contentious with neighbors, already frustrated with the lack of parking on Lincoln Avenue, decrying the size of the project and the number of parking stalls planned at the time. The pushback from the neighbors led the commission to narrowly reject the project.
In May of 2015, the developers returned to the commission for approval after Salt Lake City Appeals Officer, Mary J. Woodhead, sent the denied project back to the Salt Lake City Planning Commission arguing that the commission’s reasons for rejecting the project weren’t sufficient because the project exceeded the minimum parking requirements and was similar is size and scale to adjacent projects on 900 South.
The project will also include expanded on-street parking options. The project replaces the one-story Beauty Supply store and a surface parking lot. Because structured parking will be accessed via Lincoln Avenue, the repurposed entrance to the surface parking lot on 900 South will allow for at least two additional on-street stalls on Lincoln, in addition to on-street stalls along 900 South.
Construction on the project should start this summer, the developers have received building permits for ground and utility work and are just awaiting final approval for the main building permit.
*This is an updated version of a previous post.
