Salt Lake City: Livability in the 21st Century

By the time the Olympics arrived in Salt Lake in February
2002, the city’s 150-year-old utilities were replaced, two
light rail lines built and the state’s main highway artery,
Interstate-15, expanded. More significant, however, are the
projects completed since the Games: four additional light
rail lines with two more on the way; a commuter rail line
running along the Wasatch Front from Ogden to Provo; the
architecturally stunning Salt Lake City Main Library building
and Library Square; an extensive bicycle lane network and
GREENbike bicycle share program; the Sugar House Streetcar;
and the Salt Lake City Public Safety Building, the country’s
first net-zero (generates as much energy as it uses) law
enforcement building in the country.
Arguably the biggest project to grace downtown Salt Lake
City not only in the last decade, but last half century, is
City Creek Center. This mixed use development, funded
en total by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
features an upscale open-air shopping center with a
retractable glass roof, swanky office and residential building
complex, a two-story fountain and simulated creek stocked
with fish and lined with trees and shrubs reminiscent,
of course, of the original City Creek that once ran through
downtown. According to the CBRE’s Economic Benchmark
Report of 2013, City Creek Center has added 2,000 jobs
and brought more than 16 million visitors into downtown
and helped downtown retail sales increase by 36 percent,
or $209 million, in 2012. In addition more than 125 new
businesses have opened in downtown Salt Lake City since
2009, and residency has jumped 35 percent since 2010.
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Opposite: City Creek Center (foreground, left) is a shopping, residential and office center spanning three blocks in downtown Salt Lake City. Temple Square,
home to the Salt Lake City Temple and the Mormon worldwide headquarters, is located one block west of City Creek Center.
Above: More than 150 miles of bicycle lanes crisscross Salt Lake City proper allowing both recreation and transportation in the urban core and city
neighborhoods, as well as seamless access to bike paths and lanes in adjacent cities and communities. May is Utah’s official Bike Month, but cycling-centric
events populate the calendar year-round, including June’s Road Respect Festival and the Tour of Utah pro-cyclist stage race in August.
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