When Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson goes west to community meetings, he gets an earful.
"What are you doing," asked one resident recently, "to bring business to the west side? Was the talk of revitalization just campaign rhetoric?"
Anderson's reply is that last spring he hired Frank McCrady to draw up a plan to invigorate the west side — to at last connect it with the rest of the city. While the east side and downtown see new businesses opening, more outdoor dining and even some lively night life, too many Salt Lakers still stay away from the west. They perceive it as a kind of wild frontier of unkempt streets marred by vandalism and other crime.
So McCrady was brought on board, and since then "I get biweekly reports" from him, Anderson said at three meetings with west-side residents. McCrady did not attend any of them.
Now McCrady says he's ready to present his west-side revitalization plan to the City Council in September. He declines to give specifics about what it contains. But other city officials call it "an internal plan" that will use the city's small-business revolving loan fund and housing trust fund to entice developers westward.
Earlier this summer, McCrady brokered some loans to local shop owners and restaurateurs — but all headed for the east side or downtown.
"We have three other applications that we're currently reviewing," McCrady told the City Council this month. He later added that he didn't know whether any of the applicants are considering the west side but that the loan fund allows the city "to build bridges for the future."
McCrady has the chance now to also build bridges with west-siders — the people who actually live in houses on the far side of the railroad tracks. These residents have plenty of ideas, straightforward views McCrady could use to create a west-side renaissance.
To begin with, the picture of a west side with no small-business activity is far from accurate, says Edie Trimmer, chairwoman of the Poplar Grove Community Council.
"We see families coming from different parts of the world, and taking chances on opening businesses," she says. Latin Americans, Asian Americans and other minorities have successful shops and restaurants, and "I think that's great. I'd like to see those stores patronized by everyone in the neighborhood. But there's the language barrier, and there's a lack of willingness to try something new.
"That's a place where we could use the city's help," Trimmer adds. Any business owner could benefit from learning "how to present his business so it's inviting to everyone, so that all people feel comfortable there."
To those who might open something new on the west side, Trimmer says her neighborhood is thirsty for a coffeehouse or two and would support a place to go for breakfast and a nice place where families or couples could have dinner. She points to the corner of Poplar Grove Boulevard (400 South) and 900 West. "That's such a wonderful intersection. It's near the freeway exit" and has room for several small shops and cafes.
"We have restaurants like La Frontera, and Moshi Moshi, where people play chess at night — it's a fun place to go," Trimmer adds. "We have the Sorenson Multi-Cultural Center, Neighborhood House and things for kids to do." But newcomers and longtime residents of all ages need more places "where we can gather informally as neighbors. I'd like to see some kind of farmers market. There are a lot of cultures here" in which people "are used to walking to some sort of open-air market."
In Utah, it's not hard to find people who complain about the state's homogeneity, its perceived lack of culture and the national chain stores wrapping around the cities. They can find an entirely different scene in western Salt Lake City's parks and family-run restaurants, said Van Turner, the city councilman who represents much of the west side. "It's like a United Nations here," he says. "And we've got a lot of services that people don't realize."
As in other cities across the United States, the west side's urban neighborhoods are home to a mix of immigrants and people who have been here for generations. They want the same thing: comfortable homes of their own, near work.
Selena Truong left her native Vietnam a decade ago to join her mother, who lives in a well-kept house across from Poplar Grove Park. "I like it here," she said, "because it's close to everything," including the downtown salon where she works as a hairstylist. "And it's friendly."
Merrianne Lee has lived in Utah for 23 years, most of them on the east side of Salt Lake City. Then, seeking relief from high housing prices, she moved west, where she says the future is looking up.
"Coming home yesterday, I saw the cutest house, beautifully maintained," she said. "And I thought: It's happening."
Councilman Turner fervently agrees, saying the west is poised for new life — though it's taking years to get there. The new Buddhist Temple, the Living Planet Aquarium and the city's intermodal transit center west of the Gateway project "are up in the air. They're still five, six years away."
In the long meantime, Trimmer and her neighbors will continue organizing their own community projects, such as the banners local school children painted for hanging along Poplar Grove Boulevard and rallies against the Union Pacific trains that railroad officials say may return to the long-idle tracks along 900 South. West-siders would welcome some support, however. "I hope the city works with us on that west-side plan," Trimmer says.
E-MAIL: durbani@desnews.com