Another project likely to transform downtown Salt Lake City got its own green light this week.
The City Council has approved new zoning to allow a towering, block-size urban hospital with ambulance services on the old Sears site at Main and State streets between 700 South and 800 South.
Along with the rezone, the city has reached a development pact with Utah-based hospital chain Intermountain Health to carefully shape how the new medical facility at that southern fringe of downtown will interact with adjacent streets, homes and businesses.
(Intermountain Health, via Salt Lake City) Draft plans for open spaces and walkways at Intermountain Health's proposed site of a new hospital in Salt Lake City between State and Main streets from 700 South to 800 South.
The council’s 6-0 vote to rezone the empty site to allow a dense urban hospital on 9 acres with buildings of unlimited height came late Tuesday after lengthy hearings and approval of a new sports, entertainment, culture and convention district to the north, around the Delta Center.
“Tonight’s theme,” said council member Sarah Young, “is hard-fought victories.”
‘Very excited’
She and council member Eva Lopez Chavez, whose District 4 spans the proposed hospital location, praised Intermountain for sticking to negotiations with the city on some of the development’s key details.
“I know it hasn’t been always a smooth and easy ride,” Young told hospital representatives, “but I look at where we are and what the plans are for the future, and I really do think we arrived at a good solution that makes sense for the entire community.”
Chavez noted that her district’s residents relied heavily on mental health services and other resources the nonprofit hospital chain provides.
(Intermountain Health) A rendering of Intermountain Health's proposed hospital at State Street and 800 South.
“We’re so very excited,” she said, “to work alongside all of you in ensuring the success of this project.”
Officials with Intermountain have not offered a timeline on when construction might begin. They have sought the zoning changes at the former Sears site for almost a year, with multiple city reviews.
From headquarters in Salt Lake City, the nonprofit health care giant operates 33 hospitals and some 385 clinics throughout the Intermountain West, including LDS Hospital in the Avenues.
Officials with the health care provider did not comment Tuesday, but officials have said plans for the new hospital sought to balance street activation with designing a facility to adequately meet the need of patients requiring emergency care and other medical services.
Acre-size open space
(Intermountain Health, via Salt Lake City) Examples of street-level activation included in Intermountain Health's draft plans for a new hospital in Salt Lake City to be located between State and Main Streets from 700 South to 800 South.
Its new agreement with the city requires that at least an acre of the development proposed at and around 754 S. State St. be devoted to landscaped public open space, accessible via midblock walkways and with at least a third of it covered by vegetation.
Early renderings from Intermountain Health show a parklike space at the center of its designs, with open access to the south and medical buildings clustered around it on several sides.
The city has also adopted requirements that major portions of the hospital’s ground floor frontages on Main, State, 700 South and 800 South be devoted to uses that help to activate the neighborhood, such as shops, cafes, art therapy spaces, a day care or food trucks.
That condition reflects concerns from neighboring residents and business owners that early hospital designs called for long, bland street-facing facades that seemed too imposing and didn’t dovetail with their urban surroundings.
Council member Alejandro Puy praised the city’s new street-activation requirements, particularly for State and Main streets, which would see at least 79% and 70% of their ground-floor frontages, respectively, devoted to neighborhood-friendly uses.
Driveways into the project would also be limited along 700 South and 800 South under the pact.
‘Save’ Sears Lake?
(Intermountain Health, via Salt Lake City) Draft plans for activation areas at Intermountain Health's proposed site of a new hospital in Salt Lake City.
Crafted since late August in talks between city planners and hospital officials, the new agreement was a condition for switching the properties to so-called D1 zoning, which is prevalent elsewhere downtown.
While the site’s prior D2 zoning capped buildings at 120 feet in height, the new zoning has no height limit, although anything above 200 feet — roughly 13 stories — requires city review and potential conditions.
The city’s planning commission recommended approval of the development pact with Intermountain after reviewing it last week. Hospital officials will now refine their more detailed plans in a back-and-forth process with the commission.
Several council members, meanwhile, joked Tuesday about saving Sears Lake, a neon-yellow-tinged body of water that has collected in the hole left in 2022 when Intermountain tore down the then-vacated Sears store that had occupied the site for 75 years.
“I hope they don’t resurrect Sears Lake,” Puy quipped. “I hope they actually build a beautiful urban hospital there.”
