Downtown SLC to Rise With New Districts

None by KCPW

Thriving cities are known for their neighborhoods like SoHo, Chinatown and the Mission District where businesses congregate and tourists flock. Utah officials hope twenty years from now Salt Lake City will have a similar feel with districts called Broadway, Temple Square and Skyline.

"We didn't choose these names, they came from a huge collaborative effort," says Salt Lake Chamber President Lane Beattie, who led a year-long planning process that gave rise to "Downtown Rising."

"We talk about the convention center, an area for entertainment, people will relate to that as they visit the city for the first time. Certainly Temple Square is well-known and oft-visited. Hopefully the other districts will become as well known."

The twenty-year vision for Salt Lake's urban center calls for more green space, more attractive thoroughfares and new TRAX lines. The plan includes several "signature projects" such as a new performing arts theater, an enclosed marketplace and a sports complex downtown. Beattie says it will now be up to private developers and city officials to see the vision realized over the coming decades.

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