Salt Lakers living in the Avenues could see changes in the coming years, including more mixed-use projects and a redevelopment of the LDS Hospital site.
The Avenues is the latest neighborhood in town to undergo a refresh of its master plan, which would act as a guide for the future of the area through 2040. Salt Lake City released a draft of the plan this week, and city officials are seeking more public input before the plan would be debated by the Salt Lake City Council.
As the city’s oldest platted neighborhood, the Avenues features a unique mix of housing supply, particularly below 7th Ave. Many of the existing homes in the area were built before zoning guidelines were enacted. But despite a mix in housing types, especially in the Lower Avenues, home prices in the neighborhood are much higher than most other places in the city. The draft plan cites multiple listing service data that showed the Avenues’ median home price in 2024 was $802,500 — which is roughly 42% higher than the citywide median.
“The Avenues Community Plan draft is rooted in public input,” a spokesman for the mayor said in a statement to Building Salt Lake. “Community members have helped shape a vision for how the neighborhood can evolve to accommodate growth while preserving the character and qualities that make the Avenues unique.”
Allowing more mixed-use buildings and reducing roadblocks for infill projects are some of the goals outlined in the draft plan. Other goals include finding solutions to bolster the neighborhood, like ways to support additional retail and commercial spaces and incentivize naturally occurring affordable housing.
But among the more noteworthy aspects of the plan is the potential redevelopment of LDS Hospital, the aging facility located in the neighborhood’s western side.
A draft of the Avenues’ future land use map. Image via Salt Lake City
LDS Hospital
With Intermountain Health’s plan to convert the Sears Block into a massive hospital, there’s a potential to convert the aging Avenues facility into a “a mixed-use area with additional housing and commercial uses,” the draft plan says.
In its future land use map, the draft plan gives two blocks of the hospital a regional mixed use land designation. That designation would allow for buildings between seven and nine stories with ground floor commercial spaces like restaurants or retail space. The city uses places like the Hardware District or the Post District as comparable examples.
Areas around the hospital are designated community mixed use, which calls for buildings between five and six stories tall with ground floor commercial space. The same designation would be found along the north side of South Temple, between D Street and K Street.
In a statement, the mayor’s spokesman said it’s important to note the privately owned hospital’s future is still unknown, but the city can in the meantime identify land use designations that could support citywide growth and housing goals if the opportunity arises.
“Because the Avenues is largely built out, opportunities for new development are limited,” he said. “The draft plan identifies the LDS Hospital site as a potential opportunity to accommodate some of the community’s future growth in a location with existing infrastructure.”
Redeveloping the hospital was a key talking point for Blake McClary, an Avenues resident who unsuccessfully ran for the District 3 seat on the Salt Lake City Council last year. McClary’s plan would’ve been for the Salt Lake City Community Reinvestment Agency to buy the land and develop it into housing, parks and public space.
He told BSL on Thursday he was glad to see the draft plan include the hospital as a redevelopment opportunity. However, he said that if the city pursues the regional mixed-use land designation for the hospital site, “it will likely be met with lots of neighborhood pushback.”
“If the city pursued a medium-density plan for LDS Hospital, that would be met with less resistance,” McClary told BSL. The neighborhood medium-density plan would call for buildings between three and four floors.
Infill projects, more retail spaces
The plan also calls for more infill.
Due to its age, much of the available space in the neighborhood is built out. The draft plan says the neighborhood has over 8,200 households and a population of around 16,600 — which is around 8% of the city’s population. Of those homes, 46% are owner-occupied, which is nearly in line with the citywide metric of 47%.
But the Aves doesn’t have much mixed-use. The draft plan says just 1% of land in the neighborhood is zoned for mixed use, while 52% is zoned for open space and 45% for residential uses.
The historic nature of the Avenues has also made new development more difficult. That’s why one initiative listed in the draft plan is to, “Make changes to the Historic Preservation Overlay to streamline the new construction process for new primary buildings without public street frontage.”
Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) are identified as a potential way to create more housing supply while still maintaining the Avenues’ feel. The plan says that pre-approved ADU options that are compatible with the historic preservation overlay are another potential way to add housing units.
But it’s not just ADUs that are highlighted in the draft plan. The document also outlines how introducing accessory commercial units (ACUs) could act as a way to encourage retail opportunities into largely residential areas. These types of businesses used to be found throughout the neighborhood, especially in the Lower Avenues, the draft plan says.
One example of an ACU cited in the document is Cotta Coffee, a coffee stand located in a converted garage in a Portland, Oregon neighborhood. Other possible examples of ACUs listed in the document include a small bike shop, a tailor, a barbershop or a butcher.
“ACUs can provide affordable space for local entrepreneurs, support small-scale economic activity in buildings that are already part of the neighborhood fabric, and create focal points within walking distance of homes,” the draft plan says.
Despite the plan outlining potential changes in the area’s zoning and permitted uses, Wittenberg said the draft plan doesn’t make mandates, and rather it serves as a roadmap toward the future.
“The community plan is a long-term vision document that helps guide decision-making, but it is not a law,” he said in a statement to BSL. “The plan itself does not reform zoning or mandate any specific changes.”
Next steps
Following the draft being released, city officials will now continue to gather public input from Avenues residents. The city’s website indicates public feedback will be accepted until at least late June.
The site also says community meetings will be planned to gather comments from the public, though no dates or meetings are currently listed. The next stage in the process will be for the City Council to review the proposal. The council could vote on the master plan as early as October, though no dates have been set.
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