The Way Salt Lake City “Used to Be” By DUSTIN TYLER JOYCE | URBPL 2010 | TUESDAY, 31 AUGUST 2004

Article: “Holladay to adopt a ‘village’ design” by Derek P. Jensen, The Salt Lake Tribune,

Thursday, 26 August 2004, pp. C1 and C8

OWNTOWN REVITALIZATION is the hottest topic in urban planning in this valley lately. In Salt Lake City, for example, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Taubman Company—a nationally-known development firm—plan to invest up to $500 million to redevelop the ZCMI

Center and Crossroads Plaza malls in addition to relocating the campuses of LDS Business College and the BYU Salt Lake Center to the Triad Center at 300 West and South Temple. City Hall hotly debates the topic and the best approach government should take. Nordstrom, once threatening to leave the city altogether if it wasn’t allowed to move to The Gateway on downtown’s west end, has agreed to stay as a part of a revitalized city center. This debate, however, certainly isn’t unique to the state’s capital and largest city. Other cities across the state and particularly, it seems, in this valley are wasting no time to redevelop—or, in some cases like West Valley City, Taylorsville, and South Jordan, create—their city centers. Sandy in particular has created a brand new civic center, complete with a new city hall, office buildings, a new Jordan High School, the South Towne Centre shopping mall, and the southern terminus of the UTA TRAX light-rail line. Now, however, between this “new” downtown and the historic district of the city, there is no well-defined center. Likewise, Murray, Midvale, and Riverton, blessed with more historic and well-defined downtowns, have struggled to revitalize them. For example, two years ago Riverton razed the last strip of historic storefronts in its downtown at 12600 South and Redwood Road to make way for a new Walgreen’s or, possibly, a controversial Wal-Mart. Enter Holladay. Though one of the first areas in the Salt Lake Valley to be settled, it was one of the last to incorporate, doing so only in 2000. Unlike other recently incorporated areas in Salt Lake, most notably Cottonwood Heights, which have been pieced together from an almost unlikely combination of neighborhoods, Holladay is geographically compact and cohesive and, for decades before incorporation, enjoyed a unique identity character. Now with other up and coming cities in the valley, an aging population and town center, and the flagging Cottonwood Mall, this old neighborhood but new city is having to find itself again. This article reports on a new ordinance adopted by the Holladay City Council last Thursday that “cement[s] design standards for the town center…. The ordinance—tweaked often since the spring—outlines size restrictions, how far a building can be set back from the street, aesthetics and landscaping standards.” Architect Ken Millard, community development director for Holladay City, explained the idea behind the new rules: “A little more homey, not big-boxey…. We want activity on the streets again, like Salt Lake used to be.” In particular, the ordinance responds to some of the major problems of Holladay’s existing center: “As it stands, the area is a hodge-podge of aging storefronts, a spiffy strip mall adjacent to City Hall and the state’s oldest pharmacy. “But crumbling asphalt, a dearth of sidewalks, and the ‘dangerous’ five-pointed intersection [of 2300 East and Murray-Holladay Road] create what some in the city call ‘an embarrassment.’” And though the ordinance is intended to address current problems, the law itself is not without controversy because of some of the problems it has the potential to create: luring the right developer; choosing an appropriate grocery store and other retailers needed to bring people to the area; competition for Cottonwood Mall; pitting the interests of developers against those of city residents; and an increase in area rents, the cost of upgrading the area’s buildings, and the potential need for a public subsidy to offset this financial impact. Whatever the outcome, this ordinance makes one thing clear: Holladay is still a city in the making.

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