The city of Murray is currently in the process of overhauling roughly 86 acres of its city center in the hopes of turning it into a mixed-use, form-based downtown core.
The effort to implement a downtown rezone, which the city has named the City Center Form Based Code, is the product of years of work to dramatically change the look of the Salt Lake City suburb.
The work in Murray continues an ongoing trend of Salt Lake suburbs looking to create a new identity for themselves by building a new town center through zoning.
Most of the form-based code redesign in Murray would feature more of an emphasis on mixed-use, though different areas were drafted in the hopes of going from higher-density downtown areas and transitioning to residential.
The area under rezoning is bordered by train tracks to the west and Little Cottonwood Creek to the south. The city center zone bleeds into the north side of 4800 South, while the eastern border stops at Center Street and Jones Court. Two notable omissions of the district are an Intermountain Healthcare building and a state liquor store — both are along the west side of State Street.
Chad Wilkinson, Murray’s community and economic development director, said work on the city center overhaul began in 2017 when Murray approved a new general plan that called for a redesign of the downtown core.
“To revitalize downtown, that’s definitely the fundamental purpose of the home based code effort,” Wilkinson told Building Salt Lake. “I think the idea is to focus on building types as a way to provide economic stability for the downtown. The focus is not on use, so much as it is on the type of building, and making sure that buildings are designed for a variety of uses, and in that way, providing for some economic stability for downtown.”
The zoning overhaul would crack apart one existing zone — the Murray City Center District (MCCD) — into the five districts, each with their own purposes and differing allowable uses.
Murray’s form-based overhaul would also mean a downzoning for allowable building heights.
Wilkinson said that rather than downzoning, he would describe the changes as more of a general rezone.
“In some places, you’ll see changes to height and the type of buildings that can be allowed in there,” he said. “There’s a broadening of uses in other areas of the form-based district … I wouldn’t categorize this as an up zone or a down zone, it’s just a rezone. It’s just changing the way things are done.”
Currently, the MCCD allows buildings up to 10 stories tall or 135 feet, though different parts of the MCCD zone have other height limits varying from 85 feet down to 35 feet.
In the overhaul, the tallest allowable building would be up to eight stories tall. That height would only be allowed in the Transit Neighborhood Form District, which takes up the southwest corner of the city center area and is the closest district to the Murray Central station, which features a FrontRunner stop and a TRAX stop that services the Blue and Red lines.
David Rodgers, a senior planner for Murray City, said the overhaul efforts are a way to give Murray’s downtown a more defined, cohesive direction.
“For us, it’s more adding focus to what we want the downtown to look like and how it’ll take shape, rather than let it be more of a mismatch of various projects,” Rodgers said. “We think the form-based code will help bring focus and direction.”
Murray’s Downtown Districts
According to draft plans, the proposed form-based code is broken down into five districts: Civic Center, Boulevard, Neighborhood Corridor, Residential Transition and Transit Neighborhood. The districts fit together like jagged puzzle pieces — some districts do not adhere to neat city blocks, and instead jump over main roadways like State Street.
Murray’s Civic Center would serve as the city’s main hub. The area not only includes the new Murray City Hall, which was dedicated in 2023, but would also feature open space, retail and housing. The minimum height for the area would be three stories, and the maximum would be six. The Civic Center would feature smaller streets and a more walkable area, including community spaces and restaurants.
The district mostly is contained between 4800 South on the north end, Vine Street to the south, Box Elder Street to the west and State Street to the east. However, all of the buildings on the west side of State aren’t in the Civic Center district.
The buildings along State Street are a part of the Boulevard district, which would serve as the area’s more historical district. The Boulevard district comprises the buildings along State, running between 4800 South to the north and Little Cottonwood Creek to the south.
This is meant to be the more historical area of the City Center, as the district has additional design requirements regarding building materials, windows and doors. The minimum building height is two stories and the maximum is three, although buildings can be up to five stories if the top floors have a 30 feet step back from the front facade.
“Our goal for this one is we really want to bring back that Main Street feeling when people drive down State Street and come into downtown Murray,” Rodgers said. “We want there to be office uses, we want there to be restaurants, we want there to be commercial — just different avenues so people feel like when they come on to State Street in this area, they’re like, ‘Okay, so this is Murray’s downtown.’”
The Neighborhood Corridor district is similar to that of Boulevard, though there aren’t as many historical requirements. Located to the west of the Civic Center core, this district is supposed to act as a transition into the nearby neighborhoods. Office, retail restaurants and housing are the main uses allowed in the district, which would have a maximum height of three stories.
The Residential Transition district is also similar to the Neighborhood Corridor and Boulevard districts. The district is meant to act as a buffer between State Street and the residential neighborhoods east of the downtown core. The primary uses would be for housing and office space, and the maximum height for the area would be three stories. Online plans say the district would be, “primary residential with a variety of housing types,” and includes photos of rowhouses and condos.
Rodgers said the Neighborhood Corridor and Residential Transition districts are meant to blend into single-family neighborhoods, while still allowing for office and commercial uses on the ground floor.
“A lot of the neighborhoods around the Murray downtown area have existed for 50, 60 years, and so we want to preserve the character of those neighborhoods while also allowing the areas around them in the downtown to be able to redevelop, and to develop into something that we think will work really well with the downtown area,” he told Building Salt Lake.
Finally, the last of the districts is the Transit Neighborhood district, which is closest to the Murray Central TRAX and FrontRunner stations. This district would have the tallest buildings of the whole zone, with a maximum allowable height of eight stories and a minimum height of four. The goal for the district is to concentrate office space and residential units, along with having mixed-use.
In addition to the districts, the Murray plan also allows for multiple different building forms, including row houses and “yard buildings.” The latter would be allowed in the Residential Transition district, and would allow
Where things stand now
On April 17, the zoning overhaul efforts were given a favorable recommendation by the Murray Planning Commission, taking the plan one step closer to being enacted.
Wilkinson said the downtown overhaul will go to the city council in the coming weeks for discussion and a public meeting before the council would vote. He estimated that the council will vote on the downtown overhaul sometime this summer.
He said he knows of at least one plot of land in the city center area — a parking lot at the southwest corner of State Street and 4800 South, which would be in the Boulevard and Civic Center districts — that would start being developed soon after the zoning overhaul would pass, assuming it does.
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