This is an opinion piece submitted by Matthew Givens. If you’re interested in submitting an op-ed to Building Salt Lake, email info@buildingsaltlake.com. Sign up to get our free emails in your inbox. 

A decade ago, as I worked through my undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at the U, I had an uncommon obsession with following campus construction news and dreaming big about the future of my university.

I was familiar with the 2008 campus master plan, which was formulated by world-renowned architecture firm Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill (SOM). I looked forward to seeing new buildings and green spaces manifest as the university matured into a “PAC-12 Institution,” according to the aspirations of university leadership at the time.

The campus had some nice buildings already but was sprawled out and lacked the kind of cohesive campus design and sense of place that schools like Stanford or CU Boulder have. Great universities have great built environments that interface with the towns and cities they inhabit, and this takes decades to develop and mature. 

Fast forward to today and I am scratching my head about the haphazard planning decisions that have been made since those days. For example, where the master plan had envisioned a series of centrally located, terraced intramural fields, the university instead built two awkward, business-focused dorm buildings.

Where there was once a quaint soccer stadium nestled in an intimate green space next to the Olympic Legacy bridge, there is now a massive, incongruous dorm building called Kahlert Village. Where the aging Orson Spencer Hall (OSH) once stood overlooking the library, there is an impenetrable wall of a building called Gardner Commons. 

The common theme of these buildings, which I believe were all unique blunders, is that they were not designed with the broader campus in mind. The university saw an open field or a parking lot, claimed it as free real estate, and plopped in a myopic building or two because it had some funding readily available to do so.

The result is that they are all one-offs: they use different materials and shapes, face in different directions, and do not fit into any larger vision of what the university campus can be. It’s almost as if there was no master plan at all. 

Aside from the architectural critiques, there’s plenty that could be said about the ongoing lack of permeability and integration with the wider city. The sporadic commercial areas along 1300 East continue to be the closest thing the U has to an authentic “campus town” district, and this area is still treated as an afterthought in planning.

Why not try to support and emphasize the symbiotic relationship with Salt Lake City at the historic, walkable gateway to the campus? Why not focus redevelopment efforts around the stadium TRAX station, where the “Universe Project” once envisioned a new urban entrance to the campus and stadium? 

Now there’s a new plan that seeks to right some of the physical deficits of the campus (again) but someone up the chain has made the dubious decision to demolish the Huntsman Center, one of the few buildings that could be considered “iconic” on a campus that is generally lacking in iconic post-1950 architecture.

The new vision calls for building a hub of activity at the south campus TRAX stop, with new housing, entertainment, and dining, but it’s not clear to me why this vision requires the loss of the venerable arena. There are acres of parking lots and one-story service buildings right there that offer ample space for these new buildings, so why does the Hunty need to go? 

Clearly, the real motivation is that the facility is outdated in ways which would be very expensive to renovate. This new planning effort therefore offers an opportunity to make a PR and fundraising splash for a new, possibly smaller arena off campus that will likely have a similar price tag, a new moneymaking district around it, and half of the old arena’s character. Campus placemaking has nothing to do with it: this is about athletics and expedience. 

This is exactly the kind of shortsighted decision that has made the U’s campus, to this day, sporadic and unremarkable. If we want a campus that has a strong sense of place, we should be designing buildings and spaces to compliment and accentuate the good buildings that already exist, not tearing down the memorable ones without any public feedback to expedite the newest thing.

Like many of the other buildings built in the last decade, this new “gateway” to the campus is not actually that: it’s a real estate play in the center of the campus and will not promote permeability and private engagement with the city. The campus will continue to feel like an island and no additional “College Town Magic” will be found. 

Thinking back to the 1979 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four, I actually think there’s more Magic with the Huntsman Center than without it.