Downtown Salt Lake City
Downtown (also called City Center) is the oldest district in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The grid from which the entire city is laid out originates at Temple Square, the location of the Salt Lake Temple.
Location
Downtown Salt Lake City is usually defined as the area approximately between North Temple and 1300 South Streets north to south and about 500 East and 600 West Streets east to west. Downtown encompasses the areas of Temple Square, The Gateway, Main Street, the central business district, South Temple, and others. Along with local and state government and non profits, two primary business organizations - the Salt Lake Chamber and the Downtown Alliance promote Salt Lake CIty's downtown as the heart of the state, and as its most lively and diverse locale.
History
Downtown's layout was first planned in 1833, 17 years before Salt Lake City was founded.
Main Street
The early Mormon pioneers, who originally settled in Salt Lake City, adopted a form of consecration whereby crops grown and products produced were divided among members of
The first businesses to locate on Main Street were those founded by James A. Livingston and Charles A. Kincade, in 1850, in the area south of the Council House that was being built on the corner of Main and South Temple Streets. The Mormon pioneers lived a very secluded existence in the remote Salt Lake Valley for the first 20 years of settlement, beginning construction of the Salt Lake Temple and other monuments like the Salt Lake Theatre. However, in 1865 U.S. troops stationed in Park City discovered silver and announced it to the world.
With this announcement, an entirely new element began streaming into Salt Lake City. Prospectors completely changed the downtown district. In accommodation of the new crowd, many of the Main Street businesses were saloons, earning the street the nickname "Whiskey Street".
For many years, there existed a political and cultural divide in Salt Lake City.
Originally, the business district extended along the west side of Main between South Temple and 100 South. By the 1880s, the area had expanded to both sides of the street and down to 200 South, and increased about a block a decade, until 1900, when it reached 400 South. Today, the southern limit of downtown Salt Lake City is usually considered to be 900 South.
Commercial Street
From 1870 to the 1930s, Commercial Street (Now known as "Regent Street") was Salt Lake's notorious
20th century
Salt Lake City boomed in the years before World War I and the center of mass of downtown was pulled southward by the efforts of Samuel Newhouse and other non-LDS community members. The Exchange Place Historic District encompasses the surviving structures from this era. In 1912, at the intersection of Main Street and 200 South, police officer Lester Wire installed his homemade electric traffic light, the first of its kind in the world.[1] Salt Lake had an extensive streetcar network at the time and Trolley Square served as its main depot for years before the gradual removal of the system that came with the rise of the automobile.[2] Though the trolley system itself is now long gone, Trolley Square remains as a noteworthy example of adaptive reuse and houses a museum dedicated to the history of the city's streetcars.
After
From 1970 to 1976 the Central Main Street shopping district saw a dramatic shift from the South-end (near Exchange Place and Broadway) to the North-end (near the L.D.S Temple). This shift was the result of a change in buying patterns, with shoppers preferring malls rather than on-street department stores. Using land and a loan provided by Zion Securities, the second Main Street mall was completed in 1978. Following the completion of the Crossroads Mall, the south-end of Main Street collapsed, beginning with 117-year-old merchant Auerbachs Department Store. Others to go under were Broadway Music, Paris Company, Baker Shoes, Pembroke's, Keith O'Brien and Keith Warshaw.
In the 1980s, a
The
21st century
Downtown took center stage in the 2002 Winter Olympics, hosted by Salt Lake City, and there were efforts to beautify the city and improve transit options for visitors. The Gateway, a large outdoor, pedestrian-oriented mall, was built around the historic Union Pacific Depot and hosts the Salt Lake Olympic Plaza. The TRAX light rail system was built in the years leading up to the Olympics and directly connects downtown to the University of Utah, Salt Lake International Airport, and many of the suburbs including South Salt Lake, West Valley City, Murray, and Draper.
In 2004,
The construction of the $1.5 billion mixed-use City Creek Center from 2006 to 2012, which covers 20 acres (81,000 m2) across three city blocks, marked a significant step toward bringing business interest and pedestrian activity back to downtown. The development included nearly 725,000 sq ft (67,400 m2) of retail space, new and refurbished office towers, new residential buildings, and a full-service grocery store.[3]
In 2016, a new Broadway-style theatre, the 2,468-seat Eccles Theatre, and a connected 24-story office building, 111 Main, were completed one block south. Downtown is now seeing an "unprecedented" level of real estate development,[4] with multiple large towers under construction despite the COVID-19 Pandemic, and has more than 5,000 residential units either planned or under construction as of April 2021.[5] This includes the forthcoming construction of the new tallest building in Utah, the Astra Tower, which will stand 39-stories tall.[6]
Crime
Pioneer Park, on the western edge of downtown, developed a reputation as one of the most crime-ridden areas of the state, and as having a large number of drug dealers. During a six-day crackdown in early November, 2007, 658 people were arrested in and around the park, approximately 70% of all arrests made in the city during that time period in an area that takes up just 1% of Salt Lake City.[7] Pioneer Park was completely renovated in early 2008 following several severe assault incidents. After the controversial Operation Rio Grande, which began in 2017, and the closure and demolition of the Road Home homeless shelter in 2019 and 2020, respectively, the Pioneer Park area has begun to see a dramatic reduction in crime and a resulting trend of gentrification.[8]
References
- ^ Benson, Lee (2021-01-03). "The rather unremarkable tale of Lester Wire, and the rather remarkable invention that changed the world". Deseret News. Archived from the original on 2021-06-11. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
- ^ "Our History". Trolley Square. Archived from the original on 2021-06-11. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
- ^ "City Creek Center Opens". newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org. 2012-03-22. Archived from the original on 2021-06-10. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
- ^ "Downtown SLC, punctuated by cranes, undergoing 'unprecedented development'". ABC4 Utah. 2021-06-05. Archived from the original on 2021-06-11. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
- ^ "We now know what will replace the former Road Home homeless shelter". Building Salt Lake. 2021-04-13. Archived from the original on 2021-06-02. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
- ^ Taylor Anderson (2019-09-05). "Meet the Kensington Tower, the high-rise that would join Utah's tallest buildings in Salt Lake City's skyline". Building Salt Lake. Archived from the original on 2021-06-11. Retrieved 2021-06-11.
- Deseret Morning News. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
- ^ "The state of Utah sells former shelter property to a local developer". Building Salt Lake. 2021-02-12. Archived from the original on 2021-06-11. Retrieved 2021-06-11.