S.L. may work with shelter on housing issue
Preparations are under way for renovation of the area between 200 South and 300 South on State, and part of the discussion by the city's Redevelopment Agency is what to do with three hotel buildings, known as single-room occupancy hotels, that the city owns there.
Those hotels — the Salt Lake Blue, the Cambridge and the Regis — provide housing for low-income residents. Some of the hotel rooms are transitional housing units run by a nonprofit group to help specific populations, such as homeless adults.
On Thursday, the City Council, acting as the RDA board of directors, heard a proposal from Matt Minkevitch, executive director of The Road Home homeless shelter, which would involve the city pitching in up to $3 million to buy and renovate the Holiday Inn at 999 S. Main.
"This seems like a very positive opportunity," Councilman Dave Buhler said on Thursday, though he asked for RDA staff and Minkevitch to gather input from the surrounding neighborhoods before the board votes in a future meeting.
The RDA board has discussed a number of options for saving the SRO units in the past, including the idea of renovating a hotel. That idea is expected to be the least expensive, but it was dependent on the availability of a viable hotel.
The RDA staff reports that the hotel in this proposal is close to bus and light-rail routes and has access to shopping and social services. The biggest challenge the idea presents would be security, as the hotel requires several exits and entrances to be in compliance with fire codes, making it harder to monitor who comes in.
Staff said Minkevitch will have to come up with a solution to that issue before the project can be judged realistic.
Other ideas the RDA board has considered include requiring the developer of the State Street block to include SRO housing in its new development, buying land in the city to build new SRO housing or replacing the units on a gradual basis, moving tenants to new locations in new or existing buildings as they become available.
The city has put out feelers to see whether developers could be found who would be willing to redevelop the block and include SRO housing, but even still the tenants living there now would need somewhere to live as the new project is built.
A renovation of the Holiday Inn would result in about 250 housing units. The RDA's current SRO buildings have 116 units. The extra housing at the hotel would be used by The Road Home to provide more transitional housing for homeless residents.
E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com
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