There are new designs for another block-size neighborhood planned on the rapidly transforming western edge of downtown Salt Lake City.
Called The Silos and bounded by 400 West and 500 West between 500 South and 600 South, this cluster of buildings and green spaces is going up next to the newly completed Post District. Backers say it will add a sizable park, boutique hotel, offices, restaurants, shops and hundreds of apartments.
(Lowe Property Group, via Salt Lake City) Rendering of an aerial view of The Silos, a block-sized mixed-use development with up to 740 new homes being built on the west edge of Salt Lake City's downtown.
Developers with Blaser Ventures, Lowe Property Group and Catalyst recently submitted documents at City Hall seeking special planning and design approval for one of The Silos’ residential buildings, Silos South Apartments, which is envisioned as a five-story complex with about 275 rental dwellings.
Along with that request for concessions through treating the building as a planned development, they’ve also offered more details and color on what the city’s latest large-scale adaptive reuse project in the Granary District could bring.
Echos of the Post District
Blaser Ventures and Lowe Property Group were also instrumental in building the Post District, a $144 million-plus development of 580 dwellings, luxury amenities, and new public areas and walkways on the block just east of The Silos.
That neighborhood, which spans about 13 contiguous acres, also replaced or revamped and redeployed several old structures, including a former distribution facility for The Salt Lake Tribune, and redeveloped a blighted block that sat disused for decades.
As with the Post District, which opened in early 2023, this project will mix a variety of revitalized historic buildings, open spaces and newly built mid-rises with modern architectural styles.
(Lowe Property Group, via Salt Lake City) Rendering of Silos South Apartments, part of The Silos, a block-size mixed-use development with up to 740 new homes being built on the west edge of Salt Lake City's downtown.
In a nod to historic preservation, developers say they plan to revamp and reuse three older structures on that block, referred to as the Mill, the Miller and the Casket buildings.
They also have reported hiring an environmental engineer to work with the state Department of Environmental Quality in helping to remediate harmful contaminants that have leached into soils beneath an abandoned coal yard on the site.
Those contaminants exceed levels considered acceptable in residential — and, in some cases, industrial — areas, Joseph McKay, director of Salt Lake City-based Lowe Property Group, wrote in late November. The pending cleanup and promises to use renewable energy at The Silos are listed as ways the project furthers city sustainability goals.
The city’s planning commission approved designs for two other new Silos buildings in June 2023.
Parking garage is ‘essential’
The Silos South Apartments and the to-be-renovated Miller Building next to it will anchor the southwest corner, with the residential complex to be built atop a 425-stall underground parking garage.
(Lowe Property Group, via Salt Lake City) Rendering of a midbock walkway between Silos South Apartments and the renovated Miller building, all part of The Silos, a block-size mixed-use development with up to 740 new homes being built on the west edge of Salt Lake City's downtown.
A public walkway alongside the Silos South building will allow “bicyclists, pedestrians, and vehicles to safely navigate throughout the block and on to the public roadways,” the latest application says.
While the parking structure doesn’t meet current city rules, developers say its capacity “allows for shared parking throughout the site, an urban park, and the preservation of historical buildings and historical structures.”
They call the garage “an essential part of the project” — not least for freeing up other property that might otherwise have to be devoted to surface parking.
A park next to the iconic grain towers
(Lowe Property Group, via Salt Lake City) Rendering of Silo Park, a new urban park planned as part of The Silos, a block-size mixed-use development with up to 740 new homes being built on the west edge of Salt Lake City's downtown.
Work is underway on what’s called Silo Park, which includes a half-acre green space planned at the base of six of the site’s familiar off-white Cereal Food Processors grain towers that are being kept as the project’s namesake.
The urban park, McKay wrote, “will be an amenity unlike any other within Salt Lake City.”
Surrounded by housing, eateries and shops, he stated, the tree-lined area will be “an open space that offers community gathering and relief to the surrounding built environment.”
Development abutting the open space will include an 150-room hotel and nearly 740 living units, according to the latest application, with 180 rent-subsidized apartments and another 560 units offered at market rates and for those making blue-collar wages.
The Silos South Apartments will have most of the overall project’s rent-subsidized housing, along with two landscaped courtyards and a fourth-floor amenity deck for residents looking out over the park. Those green spots, the developers say, will be visible from public streets.
A boost to SLC’s ‘Grand Boulevards’
(Lowe Property Group, via Salt Lake City) An aerial view of the Salt Lake City block bounded by 400 West and 500 West between 500 South and 600 South — future home of a new neighborhood to be called The Silos.
The whole project sits on land zoned for general commercial uses, where apartments and hotels haven’t typically been constructed. “Introducing either,” according to McKay, “will add to the much-needed housing and hospitality offerings in this part of the city.”
The developers say they’ve shaped the design of The Silos’ “to closely align” with the city’s grand-boulevards plan, which has long aimed to beautify the heavily trafficked routes to and from Interstate 15 along 500 South and 600 South.
(Lowe Property Group, via Salt Lake City) Rendering of a portion of The Silos, a block-size mixed-use development with up to 740 new homes being built on the west edge of Salt Lake City's downtown.
They pledge to remove one of the many towering billboards along 600 South, according to their request, and to bury heavy power lines along 500 South and 400 West.
The Silos South Apartments and the intended face-lift to the Miller Building, they say, “are both expected to greatly enhance the frontage and visual interest of 500 West.”
Same goes for the key stretches of 500 South and 600 South. Those roads are major thoroughfares for those motoring though Utah’s capital, their application notes, “and as such we want the first and last impressions to be exciting, inspiring, and memorable.”
