New SLC Community and Economic Development Director Brought from Arizona

Jun 10, 2008 by Jeff Robinson

(KCPW News) After a five-month-long national search, Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker has tapped a planning leader from Arizona as his new Director of Community and Economic Development. Since 2005, Frank Gray has been the General Manager of Planning and Development Services in Scottsdale, a city of about 220,000 people. Gray said bringing more people to live in downtown Salt Lake is the key to filling up the retail vacancies.

"I think the downtown neighborhood is a growing neighborhood," said Gray. "You're starting to see more condominium developments, loft developments, those kinds of things. People living downtown -- that's what will fill up those storefronts."

Gray said downtown Salt Lake was like a DMZ twenty years ago, but is now a desirable place to live.

At today's announcement on the steps of the City County Building, Mayor Becker said to get a picture of the future of downtown, take a look at the number of cranes dotting the skyline.

"Someone told me the other day when I was riding on a TRAX train that there were more cranes up in downtown Salt Lake City than in New York City. Now, I find that a little hard to believe, but it sounded good," the mayor joked. "And really, if you look around our downtown, there are probably a dozen cranes easily up, with new construction and new development, and it's not gonna be very long before our downtown, I think, will be what all of us want it to be and expect it to be."

Gray also worked with the city more than 20 years ago, preparing the Sugar House master plan in 1985. He was also the planning director in Boulder, Colorado. Gray will be joining the city's new Economic Development Director, Bob Farrington, who left the Downtown Alliance for that job.

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