Illinois-based developer Harbor Bay Ventures committed Wednesday to lowering the planned height of an apartment tower it wants to build at Highland Drive and 2100 South — to 21 stories instead of 26 or more.
The developer is seeking a zoning code rewrite for that neck of Sugar House’s central business district that would allow a high-rise of 400 dwellings at the empty Wells Fargo Bank site, located at one of the busier and more congested intersections in one of Salt Lake City’s fastest-growing areas.
Nearly 160 residents filled a community hearing about it Wednesday night amid a rising debate in Sugar House over the project’s potential impacts and benefits.
As 20 spoke in adamant opposition — and a few in favor — shouting erupted over worries about traffic, the shadows a tower that tall might cast, effects on nearby businesses and vanishing character in the city’s quirky “second downtown.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Wells Fargo Bank site on 2100 South at 1100 East/Highland Drive, in Sugar House on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022.
“The design is actually quite nice,” said Lee Rech, a Sugar House resident for 30 years, “but the height of the building is just too much for our neighborhood.”
The public hearing — moved to Highland High School’s auditorium in recent days to accommodate extra attendance — was another step toward a review by the city’s planning commission and City Council.
Dan Whalen, Harbor Bay’s development director, told the crowd his firm would revise its original application to build up to 305 feet at that corner as part of what it says is a more sustainable strategy on development. The new maximum, he said, would be 240 feet — still more than double the 105 feet permitted now in that area.
Whalen said that granting Harbor Bay’s requests to build at greater height and use new approaches on setbacks and staggering different floors of the building as it rises would let the firm craft a project better suited to the community’s needs. That, he said, would bring improved pedestrian access along two street fronts, additional green space and retail outlets, more spacious living units and more environmentally friendly construction methods.
With the city’s population growing at 1% yearly, “density is coming,” Whalen said. “Height as a result of density is going to happen. ... To that end, we want to show you a right way to do it.”
And by embedding the changes in Sugar House’s underlying zoning for that part of its central business district with a zoning text amendment, Whalen said, future developers in that multiblock area would be bound by the same sustainable constraints.
“Everybody who comes in behind us has to play by the better ground rules,” he said, “and provide real benefits.”
Building with mass timber
Harbor Bay Ventures, based near Chicago, made a splash early last year when it bought the high-profile 1.22-acre Wells Fargo property at 1095 E. 200 South and announced it would build a residential building of mass timber.
Wood construction substantially reduces greenhouse gas emissions and is a preferred trend — over steel and concrete — in sustainable construction materials.
(Rachel Rydalch | The Salt Lake Tribune) Traffic along 2100 South in Sugar House frequently backs up, causing congestion.
The company applied in November to the planning commission for an update to the city’s general plan and for text changes to what is allowed in parts of Sugar House’s central business district, which extends generally south of the Wells Fargo site along Highland Drive toward Interstate 80.
The proposal initially aimed to raise permitted heights on the corner and throughout the zone to 305 feet in exchange for being close to transit lines, making construction greener, putting most of the required parking inside of buildings, devoting ground floor spaces to retail and other public gains.
Harbor Bay unveiled early design concepts at a community meeting in December. On Wednesday, Harbor Bay’s architect on this project, HPA Architecture, showed more detailed renderings of portions of the project to community members.
The highest buildings in Sugar House are relatively new apartment complexes, Legacy Village and The Vue at Sugar House Crossing, standing at 80 feet. Part of a new project called Alta Terra, with 346 apartments along Highland Drive across from a state liquor store, will rise to 105 feet when completed.
So, at 240 feet, the Well Fargo site would boast Sugar House’s own version of a skyscraper.
And while Harbor Bay initially said all units in the proposed high-rise would be rented at market rates, Whalen opened the option Wednesday of adding affordable apartments to the project — subject to negotiations with the City Council.
Council member Sarah Young, who represents the Sugar House area, said residents’ comments were vital to shaping what would ultimately reach the planning commission and council, with more public hearings ahead.
“You will continue to hear about this project,” she said, “and that’s not a bad thing.”
Height, traffic, shadows and housing are concerns
Many who spoke Wednesday encouraged the developer to lower the project’s proposed heights even more, pushing back on Harbor Bay’s version of what is economically feasible.
Several residents warned the apartment tower would cast dark shadows over adjacent homes, offices and businesses at key times of day, with popular Sugar House Coffee on 1100 East among them. Architects with HPA said designs sought to situate the building on the property to lessen those effects.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sugar House Coffee.
Resident Ben Raskin said Sugar House had faced a building boom to some degree for nearly 16 years, including major work on 2100 South, and he worried that large property owners on adjacent corners — Sterling Furniture and Barnes & Noble, for example — would now be incentivized to develop.
“I would like to be able to enjoy this community,” Raskin said, “without nonstop construction.”
Others said Sugar House has already grown too much, slowly erasing many of its intimate, more small-town features. One who submitted written comments said the tower would mean “the end of Mayberry.”
Resident Mohith Repalle spoke in favor density and building higher in Sugar House to make the most, he said, of shrinking land stocks and to keep housing prices more moderate. Eric Fortney, a recent college graduate, said he has countless friends who had grown up in Salt Lake City but been forced to move out for want of affordable housing.
“I want to encourage everyone to recognize that being compassionate toward density,” Fortney said, “is being compassionate toward people.”
Traffic is often heavily backed up on key Sugar House arteries and putting up a high-rise development on that corner would only worsen it, said resident Beau Hennings, echoing several comments on feared congestion.
“You add 400 more residents coming in and out all day, every day,” Hennings said. “I can’t even imagine it, to be honest.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) The site of a proposed residential tower at the high-profile corner of Highland Drive and 2100 South in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024.
Whalen said that without zoning changes, up to 300 units would be allowed on the Wells Fargo site, “so that density wouldn’t be changing drastically” with 400 units. Shifting to apartments on the property from a drive-thru bank, meanwhile, would reduce traffic, he said, as tenants could walk to grocery stores, booksellers, coffee shops, breweries and more.
But at this early stage of design, Whalen added, the firm has yet to conduct in-depth traffic studies on this project.
