Demolition work begins for large Sugar House development
After years of proposals and several different iterations, demolition is underway on the site of the future Sugarmont Apartments by Boulder Ventures, the next phase of their 2100 Sugarhouse Mixed Use Development. The project replaces two abandoned Granite Furniture warehouses at the intersection of McClelland Street and Sugarmont Drive.
The Salt Lake City Planning Commission approved a Planned Development and Conditional Building and Site Design Review in August. Construction of the Sugarmont Apartments should commence soon after demolition and ground work are completed.
The project will be eight stories with 352 units- including a mix of 34 studio apartments, 206 one-bedrooms, 93 two-bedrooms and 19 three-bedroom townhome units in two buildings on 2.86 acres that will be separated by a pedestrian walkway near the intersection of McClelland Street and Sugarmont Drive by a pedestrian bridge.
The project will feature three floors of parking wrapped by ground-floor, multi-level townhomes and five floors of residential. The project will also include a pedestrian plaza at the southwest corner of the project.
The walkway will connect the project’s pedestrian plaza to Monument Plaza and an extension of Wilmington Avenue that will be co-managed by Boulder and Craig Mecham Management, the developer of the proposed Dixon Building directly east of the Sugarmont Apartments.
Because the walkway is another pedestrian connection from the Fairmont Station, the current terminus of the S-Line streetcar, Commission members emphasized the importance of prominent signage and placemaking. The Commission members requested language be added to clarify signage requirements to require wayfinding signs that guide pedestrians exiting from the streetcar to the walkway and the pedestrian connection to Monument Plaza at the northeast corner of the block.
As conditions for approval, the developers must provide adequate space to accommodate the PRATT and McClelland Trails and dedicate to the Utah Transit Authority the portion along Sugarmont Drive that will be included in the S-Line expansion. Also, as was required for the adjacent Dixon Building, the Wilmington Avenue extension must be completed before a certificate of occupancy can be issued to Boulder Ventures.
Commission members also requested that the landscaping of the plaza and the walkway be designed as to indicate a public walkway and not just a residential amenity. The walkway will be 22 feet wide and will be open to pedestrians at all times, similar to the pedestrian walkway and plaza at the Wilmington Gardens.
The Sugarmont Apartments will be 85 feet tall, 20 feet under the maximum allowed height in the core of Sugar House Business District. The developers originally proposed building a 10-story residential with 492 units, but after several meetings with residents the developers scaled down the project.
Boulder opened the first phase of the 2100 Sugarhouse development, on the corner of McClelland and 2100 South, in 2013 with Flatbread Neapolitan Pizzeria as its anchor. The first phase included ground floor retail, mostly restaurants, and two floors of office space, including the offices for Boulder Ventures.
As recently as 2014, Boulder intended the second phase on the southwest corner of the block to include a ground-floor retail promenade with residential above. The project would have added 40,000 square feet of retail with 288 residential units on the top five floors. The developers removed plans for additional retail at the Sugarmont, citing consistent tenant turnover in its property on McClelland.
*This is an updated version of an previous post.
