Defining downtown: Various groups draw different boundaries

Six months ago, when 19-year-old Paul Gillespie moved to Utah from Louisiana, he searched for an apartment that was in the middle of city life.

He attends the Paul Mitchell cosmetology school in Holladay, but he wanted to be near clubs, restaurants, shopping and people. "I didn't want to live all the way out there," says Gillespie. "There was nothing to do."

He turned his attention toward Salt Lake City and found an apartment at The Gateway, which he describes as the perfect downtown locale: a mix of retail, office space and housing.

Gillespie is hardly alone in his belief that The Gateway blocks, once considered "west side," are part of downtown Salt Lake City.

"Historically, it's been the other side of the tracks," says Brenda Scheer, dean of the University of Utah's College of Architecture and Planning. Even so, because of the area's proximity to the blocks traditionally considered downtown, "it never really was a big stretch for people to say, 'Well, Gateway is downtown."'

The way Utah residents define Salt Lake City's downtown is evolving beyond the blocks around Main Street and Temple Square. These days, downtown — depending on who defines it — can span as far east as the University of Utah, as far west the Jordan River, north to Temple Square and south to 1300 South.

The Utah Transit Authority has a definition of downtown that differs from the Salt Lake City Council's definitions. The city's Redevelopment Agency and the Salt Lake Area Chamber of Commerce each have their own definitions.

Try getting a business or political leader to wax philosophical, and they'll say downtown has no geographical boundaries. It's a mind-set, they'll say, that involves certain landmarks, rather than distance from the city's traditional center.

"If you look at the library, for example, it's farther away from Main Street and South Temple than The Gateway," says Scheer, a specialist in downtown and urban design, and the library is considered an integral part of downtown.

Scheer describes a pattern over the years of the location of downtown shifting. "I always tell people not to worry about the boundaries, but where it is centered and what will take form," she says.

Downtown of the past

In the 1960s, downtown Salt Lake City featured angled parking on Main Street. The heart was 300 South, also known as Broadway, between State Street and West Temple. People shopped at stores such as Auerbach's and the Paris, both of which are now long gone.