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SALT LAKE CITY — Downtown Salt Lake City continues to develop in measurement and inhabitants, as a number of new skyscrapers have sprouted from the bottom and are actually reshaping the town’s skyline as building groups work to complete them.

But that is not the one factor rising. Along with an uptick in inhabitants, metropolis authorities and enterprise leaders say Salt Lake City is rapidly turning into a vacation spot for buying, eating, bars and leisure. In reality, guests accounted for about 61% of the 16.6 million individuals who got here to downtown final 12 months, based on the 2023 Downtown Economic Benchmark Report that the Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance revealed Thursday.

Other key highlights within the report embody:

• Hotels throughout the Salt Lake “convention district” are on tempo to have 1.85 million lodge room nights bought, which might be a 15% improve from final 12 months.
• Visitors are on tempo to spend $4.5 billion all through the county.
• Downtown retail gross sales soared again to about $2.33 billion in 2022, up practically 12% from the earlier 12 months and 44% from 2020. It’s additionally up 8% from 2019, displaying how the town is rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Downtown is not just the seat of Utah’s government, it’s the seat of commerce, of culture, of sports and entertainment,” stated Derek Miller, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber and Downtown Alliance.

“It is, as we have seen in the report, a destination for millions who are drawn here for business, for art, by history, by faith and for sports,” he added. “It is also a gateway for millions more who come from around the world to enjoy our red-rock deserts, our mountains, and of course the Greatest Snow on Earth.”

How downtown Salt Lake City is altering

Thursday’s report continues to indicate how Salt Lake City is evolving out of the pandemic, reaffirming that the social economy is driving downtown visits greater than the outdated chief, downtown workplaces.

“We’re the capital metropolis of the fast-growing state within the nation and the momentum right here is palpable,” stated Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. “Our downtown is literally rising but in so many different ways.”

The report factors to University of Toronto data that discovered exercise in Salt Lake City’s downtown space this winter ended up at 139% of pre-pandemic ranges. Newly launched information exhibits that exercise remained at 139% in the course of the spring, as effectively. It stays on the prime of the 63 North American cities that the college is monitoring.

Dee Brewer, govt director of the Downtown Alliance, explains that the info relies on distinctive cell phones that keep within the space for not less than 90 minutes. The Downtown Alliance decided that 6 out of 10 individuals within the downtown space had been guests final 12 months once they subtracted traits that indicated somebody both lived or labored within the downtown space.

Sports, arts and leisure are driving visitation they usually’re making downtown a beautiful place to reside and work.

– Dee Brewer, govt director of the Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance

The group dissected the data additional, choosing aside the highest 25 busiest days in 2022. It discovered that occasions and conventions seemed to be the most important cause for these visits. The Delta Center held some type of occasion throughout 19 of as of late and conventions had been taking place throughout 18 of the times. There had been eight or extra arts and leisure occasions taking place downtown throughout 12 of the times.

It might develop into much more of a sports-centric metropolis sooner or later. Mendenhall referenced Big League Utah’s push to bring a Major League Baseball team and Utah Jazz proprietor Ryan Smith’s efforts to bring an NHL team to Salt Lake City in the course of the Downtown Alliance’s annual “State of Downtown” occasion Thursday. That’s on prime of the town’s bid to bring back the Winter Olympics.

But the downtown’s meals and buying scene is rising, too. It now holds greater than 160 eating places, bars and outlets. There are additionally about 100 arts and leisure productions held each month, the report states.

“Sports, arts and entertainment are driving visitation and they’re making downtown an attractive place to live and work,” Brewer stated, as he introduced the report in the course of the occasion.

The report acknowledges that the downtown space’s inhabitants continues to be on monitor to double by 2025, from about 5,000 to 10,000, as downtown turns into more and more residential. Thursday’s occasion honored the group who put collectively the Aster, a brand new inexpensive housing advanced downtown. It’s one of some new residential complexes which have opened lately.

There are a handful of others on the best way, together with Astra Tower, which will be the state’s tallest building when it is accomplished subsequent 12 months. The new report outlines six different skyscrapers which can be “in the pipeline.” Of these, 5 are slated to incorporate some type of residential use, whereas just one is solely a lodge and one other has some workplace house.

Brewer believes having so many new residential areas both on-line or within the works is helpful when contemplating the expansion of the town’s social economic system.

“(The residential growth) is going to change the experience for many people downtown,” he stated.

That’s to not say that the COVID-19 pandemic killed the workplace constructing. The report finds that Class A workplace areas — the town’s newer workplace buildings like 111 Main or 95 State — are faring effectively. The general emptiness price in workplace buildings was solely about 18% in June.

Class B workplace areas — the less-sleek older workplaces — are lagging a bit, although. Occupancy in these dropped from 90% on the finish of 2019 to about 76% on the finish of 2022.

Some builders are actually seeking to rework these areas into residential areas. For instance, the event firm Hines unveiled a plan last year to show the 24-story South Temple Tower right into a 221-unit condominium advanced to open in 2024.

Balancing constraints and alternatives

There are another constraints in the best way, which had been introduced up Thursday.

The report states that each residential and workplace rental charges are on the rise. The Council For Community and Economic Research gave Salt Lake City a value of dwelling index rating of 108.3, which was considerably higher than the scores for Los Angeles (150.9) or Seattle (143.9) amongst Western cities, however it’s additionally 8.3 factors above the nationwide common.

The common price for a two-bedroom condominium is as much as $2,065, the report provides. It’s higher than Austin, Texas, Los Angeles, Seattle or Denver, all of that are listed between $2,600 and $4,100, however it exceeds Phoenix and Las Vegas, listed at $1,720 and $951, respectively.

While there may be a large citywide effort to address affordable housing, the rising prices in and round Salt Lake City are spilling over into different points. Lloyd Allen, the chairman of the Downtown Alliance advisory board, identified that Utah’s homeless inhabitants grew by 10% in 2022.

“That manifests most acutely in Salt Lake City,” he stated.

City, county and state leaders are still exploring ways to address the rising homelessness.

Allen stated the Downtown Alliance will start a brand new “supplemental trash removal” program to handle issues made about litter. This will likely be prolonged out to locations by North Temple, Ballpark and Central City, as the town’s Downtown Ambassadors group is expanded to serve these areas sooner or later. The group was created to refer individuals to varied companies, together with sources to assist those that are experiencing homelessness.

Meanwhile, the brand new report says building prices are up 5.43% from the beginning of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. Interest charges additionally rose from 7% to 10% throughout the identical time span. That makes it tougher to finish tasks that may assist scale back some of these prices.

There are additionally loads of different rising pains. The ongoing work to switch fuel strains and restore the roadway on 200 South is now creeping into downtown, inflicting all kinds of complications for residents, guests and enterprise house owners.

“I know road construction is frustrating, but we also know that we will be better off once it’s done,” Mendenhall stated. “It will allow us to move more freely and be able to accommodate the growth that is yet to come.”

Despite these challenges, metropolis leaders say they see all kinds of downtown alternatives as the town grows, arguing that every one the brand new developments might help entice new enterprise and employers entice and retain workers.

They additionally outlined a imaginative and prescient of downtown Salt Lake City as an leisure district, the place individuals can stroll from a enterprise or two to an occasion taking place within the space. That might embody an all-pedestrian promenade on Main Street and a “green loop” of park space that surrounds the downtown core.

It has the potential to make Salt Lake City an excellent greater vacation spot.

“We’re a city of ideas,” Mendenhall stated. “We’re a city of movement, a city with an incredibly bright future.”

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