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The developer who initially asked Salt Lake City to rezone a key corner property in Sugar House to allow for building heights up to 305 feet tall has revised its proposal to include less height and fewer units in a building that could reach 155 feet.
The parcel, home to a Wells Fargo bank at 1095 E. 2100 S. in the heart of the Sugar House business district, would become home to a mixed-use mass timber building that’s closer to 15 stories tall and could include about 325 residential units under the latest version of the proposal.
The developer says its revised project would meet existing neighborhood plans while delivering a mixed-use building that supports existing businesses, the neighborhood’s walkability and transit access, and continues ongoing attempts to make Sugar House vibrant around the clock.
Harbor Bay Ventures hasn’t released any designs for what its concept, likely holding off on incurring those soft costs until it has more clarity from the city around what it can build at the site. But it has been refining its proposal and provided Building Salt Lake with more details about what it intends to build if approved.
“The first floor is being designed to embrace the walkability of the neighborhood and to create further street level activation to support the adjacent local businesses within the Sugar House Business District,” Harbor Bay CEO Mark Bell said in a statement.
Harbor Bay said it never planned to erect a building anywhere near the 305-foot limit it previously proposed. Instead, the group had planned internally to build up to 225 feet and add 400 residences.
The group faced intense and widespread backlash from residents and local businesses who took issue with the concept of a building around three times taller than the next tallest in the neighborhood.
“Additional height was solely being pursued to provide additional public parking for the business district and provide affordable retail space for Utah-based retailers,” Bell said.
The developers now concede that there were “no acceptable public benefits that would warrant the permitted height” request of 305 feet.
The group now plans to use a townhome-style design along 1100 East in an attempt to match existing neighborhood scale.
Harbor Bay Ventures still wants to build taller than existing or draft plans for the neighborhood would allow. It’s asking the city to create a new Mixed-Use 15 (MU-15) zoning district that would apply to the property.
That could leap-frog the city’s ongoing effort to consolidate mixed-use zones into a shorter and more simplified list of form-based zones.
In fact, Planning Director Nick Norris said the request would “complicate” the existing effort to consolidate dozens of existing mixed-use and commercial districts into six.
“It is not something that the city was working on as part of the consolidation,” Norris said. “We did let the applicants know that the zoning consolidation project is proposing to replace the Sugar House Business District zones and that their proposal for a new sugar house business district zone would complicate the zoning consolidation project.”
Under the city’s existing work, the CSHBD1 district would become MU-11, which would allow for roughly 11-story buildings.
Instead, the MU-15 zone would allow for buildings up to 155 feet, with design review required for those above 120 feet. That’s up from the maximum 105 feet allowed on the property today while it’s zoned Central Sugar House Business District 1 (CSHBD1).
The Planning Commission and City Council may ultimately have to decide whether existing and draft plans for the site should be set aside in favor of the developer’s plans.
At 14 feet, the proposed minimum ground floor height would be designed in a way to activate the building at the street and require ceiling heights that promote uses like restaurants and retail.
There would be no minimum setbacks in the MU-15 zone, though developers could set the building back by 20 feet, or more if they’re providing outdoor uses like dining areas or plazas. Harbor Bay said it was too soon to say what the ground floor could look like.
As part of the city’s minimum parking reforms, the MU-15 zone would be considered a transit context and therefore the building wouldn’t be required to provide off-street parking under the new proposal.
Harbor Bay representatives said the project would meet existing neighborhood goals because it would offer housing in the center of the urban district, where relatively few other residential projects exist.
Those new units would be located on a high-frequency bus route along 2100 South, and a short walk from the S-Line for Trax.
The city envisions the Sugar House core becoming a 24-hour neighborhood, and Harbor Bay said providing high-density housing in the area would help produce a 24-hour population of the commercial district.
That population would be within walking distance of existing businesses in the neighborhood’s urban core.
“If we are unable to proceed forward with a zoning change up to 155’, we would need to build to 105’,” Bell said in his written response to questions. “I know 50’ does sound like a lot, but the additional height allows us to incorporate mass timber, townhouses along 11th, and gives us an opportunity to do something architecturally different and beautiful.”
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