Salt Lake Council boosts parking offer
The council, acting as the board of directors of the Redevelopment Agency, voted 4-3 to increase an earlier $5 million deal with Hamilton Partners and Wasatch Partners, which jointly plan to build the 21-story, 430,000-square-foot office building at 222 S. Main.
The office building will need a parking garage for the employees of its tenants, and the RDA directors see an opportunity to increase public parking at a key spot on Main Street.
But three council members wanted to see more requirements attached to the project.
Under the agreement, 100 of the structure's 840 parking stalls will be lower-level stalls available to the public at the same rate as a downtown parking meter, currently $1 an hour. All 840 stalls will also be available for free public use during 10 special events each year.
"This is a huge investment by the Redevelopment Agency in a project that will undoubtedly have huge benefits to the city," Councilman S¿ren Simonsen said. But he calculated that the 100 public stalls at $6 million comes out to a costly $60,000 per stall.
But Wasatch Partners vice president John Dahlstrom Jr. said those requirements were "losing propositions," at least at this point. He said one of the planned retailers is a bank that would have to close at 5 p.m., and lower rental rates would amount to a subsidy the developers couldn't afford.
He suggested the hours-of-operation requirement could work at some level in the future, when there is a larger pool of downtown residents who could support the businesses after daytime workers go home.
Simonsen's amendment had the support of council members Jill Remington Love and Nancy Saxton, while the other four members voted against it.
After Simonsen's amendment failed, the $1 million increase was approved by the same 4-3 vote.
RDA funding is based on tax revenue generated by a development, so the agency will pay for the parking by reimbursing a portion of the tax increment the RDA picks up from the new office space. The RDA will collect 40 percent of the taxes generated by the office space, and 85 percent of that will go back to the developers over a 20-year period. So if the tax revenue doesn't come through, the developers don't get repaid.
Developers say ground will be broken for the office tower July 10, and they expect tenants to start occupying it by June 1, 2009. It is expected to bring 1,600 new workers downtown.
E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com
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