Plans are rolling ahead to replenish Pioneer Park and make it much more appealing, but the green spot’s reputation as a magnet for crime and vagrancy is going to be hard to shake.
Known for its Saturday hosting of the seasonal Downtown Farmers Market, the 10-acre park at 350 S. 300 West is about to get a grove of new trees, pavilion, fenced playground, mist fountain, pickleball and basketball courts, a fenced off-leash dog area, and loads of improved paths and landscaping — all to fill out the park’s north end.
Details on a decisive refresh for the park have inched haltingly forward at Salt Lake City Hall since 2021, perplexing many among the wave of new residents who have relocated to the urban core in its latest population surge.
(Design Workshop and Sparano + Mooney Architecture, via Salt Lake City) A map of new amenities planned for Salt Lake City's Pioneer Park. They include (1) promenade; (2) mist fountain plaza; (3) promenade gardens; (4) pavilion; (5) ranger station and restrooms; (6) playground; (7) pickleball courts; (8) basketball court and (9) dog park.
Based on a deep cultural study and lots of public input, the latest family- and eco-friendly improvements could start as early as the fall, funded by up to $18.4 million set aside for this and future phases.
Along with new amenities, a guided path highlighting its history and a 40% bump in the number of trees at that north end, Pioneer Park will also get its first art installation, to be commissioned and situated by the Salt Lake City Arts Council.
“The goals are developing this green oasis in the heart of the city to be welcoming for everyone,” said Nancy Monteith, senior landscape architect for the city’s Public Lands Department. “It’s important that it be a thriving, active place for every day and the big day.
“We need to balance regional and neighborhood needs,” Monteith added. “It should be a model for urban ecology, and it should be a safe and well-maintained space.”
This initial round of betterment for the park, dedicated in 1898, won approval Thursday from the Historic Landmark Commission in a 7-2 vote. The panel also OK’d a separate request to build a small building in the park for restrooms, maintenance and a station for park rangers.
Infusion of trees and a new pavilion
(Design Workshop and Sparano + Mooney Architecture, via Salt Lake City) An aerial rendering of a pavilion anchoring proposed improvements to Salt Lake City's Pioneer Park, looking northeast.
Pioneer Park has seen myriad features in its century-plus history: ballparks, a swimming pool, failed soccer fields, a parked train locomotive, erstwhile venue for the Twilight Concert Series. A member of the Historic Landmark Commission joked it should be called “Evolution Park” for all its incarnations.
Partly due to its gritty urban context, the park has also stood out for more than decade for its elevated crime rate compared with other parks. Its vulnerability to vagrancy has worsened in recent years with a dramatic rise in the number of unsheltered residents.
Nearby merchants, business leaders and advocates formed the Pioneer Park Coalition (now called Solutions Utah) about 10 years ago to speak out on issues related to drugs, crime and homelessness.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Pioneer Park Coalition Executive Director Jim Behunin presents a plan to address homelessness in Salt Lake City in 2022.
Though it’s been a natural gathering spot more than a century, Pioneer Park doesn’t retain any standout historic features. The city’s first-ever cultural study of the site has guided the use of appropriate materials, a natural mix of tree and shrub species and a 25% limit on how much the ground is covered over. Urban foresters have shaped the plans to preserve as many mature trees as possible.
Seven trees are to be removed but the revamp will add another 124 trees, selected for a diversity of species and ability to lower ambient temperatures with shade.
(Design Workshop and Sparano + Mooney Architecture, via Salt Lake City) An aerial rendering of the dog park proposed as part of improvements to Salt Lake City's Pioneer Park.
New benches and bike racks are to be sprinkled throughout. The pavilion, centrally located at the north end, will have a look of undulating metal.
Since a review in August, the city has added the guided and winding path to its designs. It will include markers highlighting the park’s history. Architects also refined the look of the ranger station to help it better blend with its surroundings.
‘This is not a park for children’
(Design Workshop and Sparano + Mooney Architecture, via Salt Lake City) An aerial rendering of proposed Pioneer Park improvements in Salt Lake City, looking north.
Talk of the station and its restrooms Thursday triggered a torrent of concerns from some commission members involving safety and fears that some new amenities might worsen conditions for the unsheltered.
They demanded details on ranger staffing levels and hours, the availability of social services for those the rangers might encounter — and how aggressively the green space would be overseen and secured.
“This is not a park for children because it’s frightening,” commissioner Babs De Lay, a longtime downtown resident, said in reference to the planned playground. Adding a misting water feature, De Lay asserted, risked luring unauthorized bathers on scorching days.
(Design Workshop and Sparano + Mooney Architecture, via Salt Lake City) A rendering of a guided path among a set of new improvements proposed for Salt Lake City's Pioneer Park.
She took issue with the restroom designs, saying their stalls would “attract drugs and nefarious things.” And with an existing shortage of public toilets in the area, locating four new restrooms in the park, De Lay said, “just looks like, ready for drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll in there — and that’s kind of frightening, too.”
Commissioner Emoli Kearns questioned the plan’s paving and hardscaping, wondering aloud if “some of these improvements are engineered to make the area less hospitable to our urban wildlife,” referring to unsheltered residents.
Citing a prior decision to remove trees from the park, Kearns called the latest plans “all lipstick on a pig” and warned the proposed dog park would be “an open toilet.”
(Ed Kosmicki | Special to the Tribune) The Downtown Farmers Market in 2021 at Pioneer Park.
The improvements, she said, were “an effort to displace the homeless population and have come at the expense of the rest of the city. Historically speaking, Pioneer Park did a great job containing some of these social ills, and I feel like that’s this park’s job.”
“Homeless people are people, too,” Kearns added, “and if we don’t allow them to be somewhere, they’ll be everywhere, and that’s a problem that we are experiencing right now.”
Monteith, with the city’s Public Lands Department, countered that the city’s aim was to make the spaces “welcoming to anyone who is appropriately using them.” She and others mentioned the beneficial effects the popular Downtown Farmers Market brings in boosting a public presence and improving safety.
(Rachel Rydalch | The Salt Lake Tribune) Anita Murphy tends to her market stand as she sells at the Downtown Farmers Market in 2022.
“The idea,” Monteith said, “is that we bring a lot of activities to the park to add more vibrancy, so everyone is welcome and people are more comfortable being in that public space.”
Echoing others, commissioner Michael Vela cautioned that building new amenities won’t be enough to alter the park’s current condition.
“This really needs to be managed very, very well,” Vela said. “Otherwise it will be as successful as the soccer fields that were built a few years back.”
