Intermountain Health’s plans for a new high-rise hospital on the edge of downtown Salt Lake City need to deliver more for the surrounding neighborhood, city leaders said Tuesday night as they pushed back on its latest designs.
City Council members say they will make the Utah-based hospital chain sign a development agreement to regulate how the huge new medical facility will be built to interact with surrounding homes and businesses around Main and State streets between 700 South and 800 South.
As they did in July, council members asked that Intermountain’s designs for the old Sears block include more ground-floor amenities such as open spaces, walkways, a food market, coffee shop and other community resources.
But now officials want those guarantees in writing before the council will approve two rezoning requests for the properties around 754 S. State St. to allow for a hospital and ambulance services to be built there.
(Intermountain Health) A rendering of Intermountain Health's proposed hospital at State Street and 800 South.
“We’re not sharing the same goals at the moment,” west-side council member Alejandro Puy said of Intermountain, “so I am not willing to support the plan. ... We’re talking about Main Street, about State Street. We’re not talking about any other random streets in Salt Lake City.”
City leaders also heard from several area business owners who share similar concerns. Intermountain has been seeking the zoning change for almost a year, with multiple city reviews.
Nobody from the multistate health care chain spoke Tuesday, but in the past its representatives have said plans for the hospital sought to balance larger urban-planning needs and street activation while catering to patients requiring emergency care and other medical services.
The council supported its tilt toward a formal development agreement on the new hospital later Tuesday, with an unanimous straw poll in favor. The council had been poised to vote on Intermountain’s zoning request on its 10 properties on that block within weeks.
Council member Eva Lopez Chavez said “creating a true urban hospital” at that midtown site had potential to serve the greater downtown as a neighborhood and help residents across her downtown-centered District 4 and beyond.
Echoed council member Sarah Young, representing Sugar House: “I do think this location is a benefit to the comprehensive city.” But she, Chavez and other council members agreed Intermountain’s revised designs still fell short on how much of the block-size development would be devoted to activating the neighborhood.
City planners noted the health care company seemed to be including elements such as parking in its tallies of the proposed hospital’s ground-floor features with activation potential.
West-side council colleague Victoria Petro noted that boosting sales taxes from that southerly stretch near downtown was a relatively low priority for city leaders compared to promoting health, walkability, sustainability and activity at street level.
Shop owner Isaac Atencio said he and his neighbors had long promoted it as a small arts and entertainment district appealing to pedestrians, and they hoped the hospital’s design could serve to bolster instead of thwart that.
“We don’t want to lose an entire block in each direction when you’re walking down the street,” Atencio said, “to something that isn’t uplifting to the economy.”
Hong Nguyen, owner of Sapa Sushi Bar & Asian Grill, a restaurant located on north end of that former Sears block, said she worried about accessibility for the family-owned eatery as the hospital developed over the years. Thus far, though, Nguyen said Intermountain had kept open “neighborly” communications with surrounding business owners and residents.
Nguyen and Darren Picoli, co-owner of The State Room, a live music venue a block north of the proposed hospital site along State Street, said they backed the notion of a formal development pact with Intermountain to ensure community benefits such as more public areas and walkways and additional businesses that would also match the hospital’s needs and goals.
“A cafe, a convenience store, a gym, wellness centers, pharmacies,” Picoli suggested to the council, “all of that could be flipped to the public side of the sidewalk.
“I’m really hoping we can look to laying out these ground rules,” Picoli said in support of an agreement, “so that 20 years from now, when our downtown is to 900 South, we don’t have a block of walls that we’re trying to contend with.”