Key corner in Central 9th to see mixed-use condo project replace gas station
A long-dead corner at the eastern gateway to the Central 9th District in Salt Lake City will soon gain a whole new profile.
Locals JZW Architects presented their plans to the city’s planning commission recently for Granary on 9th, a three-story, mixed-use, for-sale condominium project at 110 West 900 South.
The former gas station sits on .42 acres with FB-UN-2 zoning. JZW’s two buildings will house 19 1- and 2-bdrm living units, along with ~3200 sf in two retail spaces on the ground floor. The project provides 14 parking stalls in private garages, a .73 per unit ratio.
The developers are in a planned development process due to four garages that back onto an alley and an issue with ground-floor glass requirements. Both were treated as minor technicalities by the commission. Yet before it was approved with conditions, the project hit some bumps on the design front.
The residential side of the project is centered around a courtyard, where 10 of the project’s 19 units have their front door. Those 10 units are configured in a 3-story townhome-style, while another eight 1-bedroom units are stacked in two levels on top of the retail units facing 900 South.
Another, smaller ground-floor unit is squeezed in on the West Temple side, and its garage is the cause for the north building not meeting the zoning’s 40% ground floor glass coverage requirement.
Gonzalo Calquin, JZW’s project manager, received some strong rebuke from commissioner Jon Lee, a local architect and designer.
“This is pretty chaotic,” Lee expressed to Calquin. “Can you explain these white, turret towers you have on the building?”
Calquin responded that they are “architectural treatments” that contain stairwells for the townhomes, with horizontal windows at the stair landings.
“I think it’s a stretch to call it architecture,” Lee asserted. “If you look at the hats that are on top, they’re completely out of scale with the rest of the building – it just makes no sense.”
The project was approved by the commission, with the condition that the developers return to staff a design that makes the facade of the north building “have a look more residential look than a commercial look,” in the words of commissioner Brenda Scheer, who led the motion for approval.
