A newly open luxury apartment tower on Salt Lake City’s South Temple is not really new — and that’s a crucial point for its developer.
Seraph on South Temple is the first office-to-residential conversion for the global real estate investment firm Hines, fashioned from the iconic cream-colored, 25-story, 1960s-built office complex known to many as the University Club Tower.
After nearly 20 months of heavy interior remodeling by Big D Construction, Seraph’s converted living spaces and rich amenities at 136 E. South Temple are now complete and open for leasing — part of what a top Hines executive says is a strategy to unlock the value of older buildings in rapidly growing cities with high demand for housing.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Inside one of the living units in Seraph on South Temple, a newly opened office-to-residential conversion with 217 luxury apartments.
“As one of the few large-scale office-to-residential conversions delivering in today’s evolving urban landscape, Seraph sets a benchmark for transformative projects nationwide," Hines’ Ray Lawler, who heads the firm’s operations in the Americas, said in a statement.
The refreshed, 217-unit tower will offer studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments, starting at somewhere around $2,000 a month or above, along with an assortment of higher-end three-bedroom penthouses. The building’s old 5-foot-by-5-foot windows have been replaced throughout with floor-to-ceiling glass, for sumptuous views in common areas and living units.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) One of the common areas inside Seraph on South Temple in Salt Lake City.
Along with top furnishings and finishes, Hines is touting what it calls the building’s “best-in-class” amenities such as a resort-style pool, clubroom, fitness center and an array of workspaces and entertainment areas. Designed in high-end wood paneling, marble and sleek modern lighting, the building’s ground-floor lobby aims to be one of Salt Lake City’s finest.
There also is a lavish rooftop deck on the 25th floor with fire pits and 360-degree views of Utah’s capital and surrounding mountain vistas.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The rooftop deck at Seraph on South Temple in Salt Lake City.
“Seraph is a bold step forward for Salt Lake City’s downtown,” said Dusty Harris, Utah-based senior managing director at Hines, “transforming a long-standing office tower into thoughtfully designed residences that reflect the city’s momentum.”
With many office properties currently underutilized — both in Utah and nationally — and high interest rates pushing up the costs of new construction, some commercial real estate experts are suggesting that adaptive reuse has become an increasingly viable way for cities to add housing.
In the case of Seraph, the fact that it has been a redevelopment as opposed to a new build appears to be what made it possible at all.
Hines’ Utah Theater site remains stalled
(Renderings courtesy of Hines/Dwell Design Studios, via Salt Lake City Planning Department) Global developer Hines has temporarily shelved its plans for 31-story apartment complex at the former site of the Utah Theater on Salt Lake City’s Main Street. (Jan. 12, 2021)
While revamping the old tower, Hines has maintained its partnership with Salt Lake City’s Community Reinvestment Agency on a separate, controversial and stalled project to build a luxury residential skyscraper on Main Street, where the demolished Utah Theater, also referred to as the Pantages, once stood.
The company, which has an estimated $90 billion or more under management in 30 countries, hurried in April 2022 to tear down the historic and run-down theater after taking ownership of it from the city. As part of that deal, Hines agreed to replace the century-old performance hall with a 400-apartment luxury tower that would include some rent-subsidized units, a pocket park and other features.
(Image courtesy of Hines, via Salt Lake City) The 31-story Main Street apartment tower Hines has shelved at the former site of the Utah Theater was to include an adjacent park.
In exchange for those concessions — along with guarantees that some of the storied theater’s historic elements would be documented and salvaged — the Community Reinvestment Agency handed Hines the Main Street site for free.
Yet due to vaulting interest rates and other market forces, Hines officials said, its plans for the 31-story 150 South Main Street Apartments skyscraper sputtered to a halt not long after. In August 2024 — three months after Hines launched its remake of Seraph — the firm announced its skyscraper remained on indefinite hold and it won approval instead to build a temporary parking lot on the former Pantages site.
Harris said Monday the firm would announce some additional interim uses for the property while it works to try to resuscitate its skyscraper plans.
Hines continues to seek financial backing to make the Main Street tower project viable, Harris said in an interview.
“We’re doing everything in our power,” he said, “to get it to a point where it can be developed.”
Harris said Hines’ timing in pursuing the Utah Theater project “has not been all that great, but we still believe in Salt Lake and that the future is bright.”
New sheen on old office buildings
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) View of the street-level entrance to Seraph on South Temple, an office-to-residential conversion by global real estate investor Hines.
As for Seraph, Harris said, Hines sees adaptive reuse in a new light after many years of investing in offices.
“We’re of the belief that some of the older office buildings are probably a bit obsolete,” he said. “What do you do with those going forward? We think that housing for those buildings is a good opportunity for communities.”
The Seraph remake, led by the Washington, D.C.-based architecture firm Hickok Cole, has taken advantage of unique features in the 60-year-old office building’s original steel and concrete frame that have made it ideal, Hines officials said, for customizing to residential use.
That includes compact floor layouts around the building’s central core and 10-foot ceiling heights, they said, along with a healthy ratio of parking spaces per living unit beneath the building and elevator access on all sides.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The seventh-floor pool at Seraph on South Temple.
Hines said that converting the structure’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems as part of the adaptive reuse will reduce carbon emissions from the project by as much as 74% overall, compared to ground-up construction.
Given its rapid population growth, flexibility in city zoning and many older, underutilized office buildings downtown, Hines officials said, Salt Lake City “presented a compelling environment” to make the Seraph conversion happen.