A city of commuters could soon give way to a town of 24-hour urban dwellers if Salt Lake City planners have their way.
A new ordinance before the city's planning commission would allow apartments and condominiums on the ground floor of the city's downtown, including Main Street. Currently, such livable space is restricted to floors above or below street-level commercial.
"There are people in line, pounding on the doors of my office begging for a downtown, live-work urban loft space. I just say get in line," said Babs De Lay, planning commissioner and principal broker of Urban Utah Homes and Estates. "This is the kind of space we couldn't give away three to five years ago, and now there isn't anything like it."
That change is long overdue, De Lay said, and could increase the vitality of Salt Lake City's downtown and even change the culture of the city. From a city with a mass exodus at 5 p.m., Salt Lake City could become a downtown dotted with grocery stores and boasting an unprecedented nightlife.
"It's going to add more people, and people living downtown usually care more about downtown and improving downtown," she said.
Although the city already encourages live-work buildings with first-floor retail or office space and upper-level condos, De Lay said street-level residences could lure even more city-dwellers who want to live "in the thick of everything."
The city only has about five such live-work buildings now, and five more are in the works, said De Lay, who works on the first floor of the Dakota Building and lives on the top floor of the downtown building.
The proposed ordinance, which will come before the Planning Commission Wednesday for a public hearing, would still incorporate the city's guidelines of at least 40 percent glass facades on the first floor downtown and at least 60 percent glass on Main Street.
That 1995 ordinance aimed at preventing drab, solid-wall store fronts facing the street, deputy community develop- ment director Brent Wilde said. Removing housing from the first floor was an extra measure to reinforce the downtown revitalization, he said.
Now, however, he said city planners believe they can maintain the urban feel while implementing residential on the street level.
"If they develop the glass with downtown residential, they'll still achieve that intended flavor of having a front facade that's open and maintaining a relationship between the street," Wilde said.
First-floor residential would only increase that pedestrian-friendly feel city planners are aiming for, he added. An increased core of city-dwellers could also add to the effort to revitalize Main Street and the downtown area — roughly between 200 East and 600 West and 1000 South and North Temple.
"If you've got the 24-hour population, they're going to support the restaurants and the retail and the arts," he said. "They will support all of the functions much more than the workday population that basically vacates downtown at 5 p.m."
Interest from developers about ground-floor apartments has peaked in recent years with permit applications increasing and inquiries about first-floor homes "popping up more frequently," city permit supervisor Larry Butcher said.
Although developers could get a conditional permit to put housing on the first floor, the permit process is often too lengthy and daunting, he added.
"A lot of the developers are finding that trying to do the commercial takes them in a direction they're not comfortable with," he said.
Alan Wood, developer and owner of Wood Property Development, initially wanted to put housing units on the ground floor of a 117-unit condo development at 350 S. 200 East. But getting a permit proved too time-consuming, and he settled for a live-work model with street-level retail.
"It would have been an uphill battle at that time getting the change," Wood said. "I decided I had to stick with retail."
Wood said he's been converted to the live-work model of retail on the first floor, adding that viable ground-floor housing may depend on the specific site.
"In an urban setting, with the need for security and feeling that you're not right on the street, the preference is to be up off the ground level — to be removed from it a little bit," he said. "I think that there may be some hesitancy to have a condominium unit right on the street level."
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