Downtown rents are headed up

Downtown "is first and foremost an employment center for the state," said Wood.

The Salt Lake Chamber has envisioned different districts for the city, such as a hotel district and The Gateway District. Blocks 69 and 70 — West Temple to State Street and 100 South to 200 South — are the proposed Arts and Cultural District and the subject of a recent study by architect Prescott Muir.

"The basic premise (of the study) is growing jobs, growing the tax base," Muir said.

There is $600 million to $700 million in potential development in the two blocks, he said.

The study recommends building a hotel near the Salt Palace and a 2,400-seat performing arts theater, as well as renovating the Utah Theater and adjacent space for a film center, refurbishing the Regent Street parking garage and creating housing on Regent Street and in the Salt Lake Tribune building, vacated when the newspaper moved to The Gateway.

The 20-acre City Creek Center development will feature a glass roof with an ability to retract to let in the sunshine over retail sections, Gibbons said Wednesday. The namesake stream, City Creek, will wind through the development and splash down in man-made waterfalls. A sky bridge over Main Street will connect the two blocks of the development.

City Creek Center will contain 700 units of housing, some of which are currently under construction. The first residential tower will be finished in 2010. The entire development is expected to be completed in 2012.

Below-ground parking structures will be tall enough for a Ford Expedition with a ski rack on top, Gibbons said.

On the Web

A virtual tour of City Creek Center — the LDS Church's retail, office and residential development where the Crossroads Mall and ZCMI Center once stood — can be viewed on the Web.

To travel through conceptual images of the completed project, including the controversial skybridge over Main Street, go to: www.downtownrising.com/city_creek/index.php

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E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com