Downtown changes hailed

Change.

It has defined downtown Salt Lake City for the past 15 years — with the building of the Salt Lake Library, Matheson courts building, The Gateway, TRAX and more — and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, according to the Downtown Alliance.

"Cities are always about change," said Bob Farrington, the alliance's executive director, at the group's annual meeting Thursday. "They are organic, possess souls and personalities and take a fresh breath like we do every day. We should try to remember what we have and what we are about, to try and support the businesses and individuals and organizations who make our city unique and proud."

The Downtown Alliance represents more than 2,500 businesses and property owners in Salt Lake City's central business district. It became an affiliate of the Salt Lake Chamber in 2003. Members gathered Thursday for the group's annual report and to honor its Downtown Achievement Award winners.

Salt Lake City is facing tremendous, imminent change, with several major building projects announced in the heart of its central business district. To prepare, Salt Lake Chamber President Lane Beattie said the chamber and alliance will work together on two main issues: the Downtown Rising initiative and transportation.

The alliance will push to ensure that the city has a viable construction mitigation plan for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' downtown redevelopment project, according to the alliance's chairman, Tom Guinney.

"One of the primary focuses will be construction mitigation to successfully work through the next five or six years," he said. "What we have before us is absolutely quite remarkable ... and the end result is going to be truly a blessing to the Intermountain Region and to the state of Utah."

Both groups will work to nurture Downtown Rising, a business-led initiative to develop a vision for Salt Lake City.

"I think of Downtown Rising as an ethic," Beattie said. "It is a movement, or a mind-set, where we commit to keep and enhance our downtown as the heart and central gathering place of the entire state of Utah.

"Let us never, ever allow this great region to have the urban shape of a doughnut. Vibrant suburbs with nothing in the center. Downtown Rising is about this commitment to a thriving region, thriving suburbs and a thriving downtown. All will prosper best together."