HOLLADAY — Some older Salt Lake Valley cities are still searching for what 3-year-old Holladay already has — a bona fide, identifiable, marketable, conveniently located city center; a downtown that doesn't look like just another thoroughfare populated by strip malls.
The Holladay Village Center is the recognized "heart of Holladay," as city administrator Jerry Medina puts it.
It's where Holladay Boulevard, Murray-Holladay Road and 2300 East meet in a five-way quagmire of asphalt that is certainly distinctive, if not desirable. It's the focal point of business and commerce — City Hall is nearby — and a magnet for traffic congestion.
Yes, Holladay has a center of gravity. And yet, amid the confusion left from its previous life in unincorporated Salt Lake County, there's a feeling of weightlessness.
Now, Holladay officials are hoping to anchor their city's future by transforming the Holladay Village Center and giving it a second life. It's a major undertaking, one that essentially began with the city's incorporation three and a half years ago.
A recently completed first draft of the proposed Village Center Master Plan sets out a framework for revamping Holladay's commercial core. The plan will be considered by the Planning Commission, and then the City Council, in the coming months.
"I think it's come time for some rejuvenation in the downtown area," Mayor Dennis Larkin said. "It's kind of exciting, and I hope we can get going on it pretty soon."
The plan suggests a physical reconfiguration of the five-way interchange that at once identifies the area but also causes gridlock and safety hazards detrimental to its success.
The intersection would be eliminated by creating two "swept arterials" — one connecting 2300 East with Murray-Holladay Road and another connecting Holladay Boulevard from north to south. The idea is to increase traffic flow and improve the pedestrian environment.
City leaders would like residents to feel more comfortable, and safer, walking through the Village Center. The plan also calls for the addition of trees, planters, pavers and "street furniture."
The new road design would increase access to businesses, provide more on-street parking and create large "hidden" parking spaces behind buildings to help avoid the feeling of a strip mall, according to the plan. And nearby residential areas would benefit because fewer motorists would take shortcuts through subdivisions to avoid traffic congestion.
The plan also proposes a "market square" between Holladay Boulevard and 2300 East that would include an amphitheater and provide a place for gatherings such as a farmers market.
There would be a transit mall either in the market square or at City Hall. A pedestrian trail could encircle the entire Village Center. And the market square could connect with open spaces outside the Village Center.
The plan designates the market square area as a cultural and civic district. The land on the northwest corner of Holladay Boulevard and Murray-Holladay Road would be for restaurants and specialty services. And the east side of the Village Center, on both sides of Murray-Holladay Road, would be set aside for "leisure and lifestyle" businesses such as bookstores, clothiers, galleries, home furnishing stores and more restaurants.
The plan also calls for burying all power lines in the square-mile Village Center area. That alone could cost more than $1 million.
City officials aren't sure how much it would cost to implement the entire plan, but it likely would be phased in over a period of years, perhaps as long as a decade.
"I don't know if all the elements are going to be recommended . . . (but) I like what has been done," Larkin said of the proposed plan.
"The main thing we have to be concerned with is making sure that we complement the Cottonwood Mall rather than compete with it. We don't want the same kind of facilities in the Village Center as the Cottonwood Mall would have."
The City Council has placed a six-month moratorium on new development in the Village Center, but that will run out at the end of May. The Planning Commission met earlier this month and tentatively agreed to forward its recommendations on the plan to the council within 60 days.
E-MAIL: zman@desnews.com