Tony SemeradIf Trolley Square gets its way, an old home along 700 East would be carefully taken apart, moved brick by brick and reassembled nearby on the same block — a final step toward clearing room for another major housing development next to the iconic shopping mall.
Trolley Square Ventures LLC is asking Salt Lake City’s stewards of historic landmarks to approve relocating the 121-year-old Victorian-style cottage at 630 S. 700 East to another spot nearby on Sego Avenue. The home is currently situated next to Trolley Square’s surface parking lot to the south.
The Historic Landmark Commission is set to review the proposal on Thursday.
(Salt Lake City) A map showing the proposed relocation of a historic home at 630 E. 700 South in Salt Lake City, next to a surface parking lot for Trolley Square shopping center.
The small aging home is considered among several defining structures within Central City’s historic district, as is Trolley Square, built in 1910 as streetcar barns and converted to a retail mall in the 1970s.
The historic mall got purchased out of bankruptcy nearly 12 years ago by Khosrow Semnani, the Iranian-born industrialist, philanthropist and founder of Energy Solutions. Trolley Square Ventures is a subsidiary of S. K. Hart Management, founded by Semnani, and operates as its business and development arm.
Relocating the entire historic house in one shot to a spot only yards away at 636 E. Sego Ave. might otherwise be ideal to keeping it intact, city planners note — but Trolley Square Ventures, which owns the property, says due to its age and lack of structural stability, “it would not survive that process.”
So the idea now is to take it apart with “a meticulous inventory and labeling of all materials and exterior components” — as well as a sense of its historic setting — and “accurately reassemble the dwelling to its original condition,” city documents say.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Historic home at 630 S. 700 East near Trolly Square on Thursday, July 30, 2026.
The building’s most notable architectural features would be included into the exterior of the newly constructed house placed on a fresh foundation, according to the request in front of the commission.
Currently painted gray with white edges, the 121-year-old cottage has a distinct front-gabled roof, wide covered porch with square columns and a fish-scale shingle pattern on part of the exterior. Thousands of motorists drive by it daily.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sego Avenue near Trolly Square on Thursday, July 30, 2026.
Ogden-based Kier Construction would be the primary contractor on the relocation project, according to Trolley Square Ventures.
This particular home would also be sort of a last domino in the mall owner’s pursuit to shape a suitable footprint for constructing a large residential and mixed-use complex spanning much of the parking lot site and its fringes, as other housing projects continue to go up around the retail center.
Since 2023, the Landmark Commission has OK’d moving or demolishing five other single-family dwellings in that same northeast corner of the block between 600 South and Ely Place.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Trolley Square in 2025.
Officials with Trolley Square Ventures have previously shared visions of a project with as many as 350 apartments and townhouses spread over seven buildings on that spot. If built, the complex would occupy up to 3.75 contiguous acres.
In city documents, Trolley Square Ventures makes reference to a complex called “Trolley Place,” which would make for at least four properties surrounding the mall that either have Trolley in their names now or hope to in the future.
City planners confirm in their analysis that this latest home relocation is meant to enable construction of that project. Future plans for redevelopment of the area and adjoining buildings, they note, would be subject to separate approval by the Landmark Commission.
(WATG) Rendering of a proposed condominium high-rise tentatively called Trolley Square Residents. If built, it would occupy the northeast corner of 500 South and 700 East.
(Salt Lake City Planning Department) Student housing, tentatively called Trolley North, would bring 195 units to 675 E. 500 South in Salt Lake City.
A Trolley Square-backed housing project south of the mall would add to a roster of sizable residential projects by other developers built or proposed in recent years for those blocks near 500 South and 700 East.
Most recently, a Utah developer filed last week for permission to construct 97 for-sale condominiums in a 15-story glass- and metal-clad high-rise tower to be located at 705 E. 500 South, just northeast of Trolley Square. That is to be called Trolley House Residences.
Work also got underway earlier this year on demolishing an aging office complex to kick off construction of a long-awaited mid-rise enclave of at least 195 units of luxury student housing north of the shopping center, to be named Trolley North.
