Sports and Entertainment?
Here is Part I the statement that I read at Salt Lake Planning Commission on June 13, 2024:
My response to the zoning changes requested by the City for the Sports, Entertainment, Culture and Convention Center: In the past 25 years, we have already demolished urban fabric and built a gigantic solution that promises to “revitalize” downtown. In fact we have made this move, more than once, each time with terrible consequences and each time successful for only a short period. From Main st businesses that had thrived for 100 years were wounded deeply by Crossroads Mall, which in turn was killed by Gateway, which suffered near-mortal damage from City Creek Mall, which itself stumbles to find a sustainable way.. The convention center itself and even the Delta Center, are two more examples of large scale “downtown saviors” that now need very expensive publicly funded renovation, less than 25 years after they opened. This is no way to plan a city. The key to urban development is to create a framework for orderly and incremental change by multiple actors, not to demolish entire 2 or more 10-acre blocks, close streets, and build a single unified VISION.
These fail, always, because when land uses go out of technical or economic favor, which they do a lot, (see recent office building uses) and super large projects fail all at once, while smaller buildings can flexibly adapt. Gateway cannot adapt. City Creek cannot adapt. Anyone who believes that a jumbotron-fueled, oversized, and glitzy sports center will be anything but a relic needing overhaul in less than 20 years needs to turn off their VCR and join the real world. On the other hand, moderate scale housing is always needed and always endures far longer than, say, Dave and Busters latest iteration. Keeping the height limits will help create density that is moderate and pedestrian oriented in scale, not concentrated in one or two tall expensive tower,s and with greater consistency of urban fabric along these blocks of Salt Lake. This is the intent of the D4 zone, which is to support a lower scale, pedestrian environment.
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