What will $180 million dollars buy you? A ten story federal courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City. Only the fanciest offices and courtrooms for our judges. We wonder why we have a deficit in this country with such extravagant spending. Oh well, at least we get a nice big box out of it. The facade on this building will make or break it since it is one big box.
OC Tanner has recently finished renovating the old Hansen Planetarium/Salt Lake Library building. They did an absolutely amazing job bringing this beauty back into its glory. No costs were spared in making this one of Salt Lake City's crown jewels. I think that it now has to be one of the most beautiful jewelery stores anywhere.
Here is a photo I took of the Main Street Plaza last fall. This plaza was under lots of controversy because the LDS Church purchased the right of way and closed this part of Main Street to create this beautiful plaza to connect Temple Square with the LDS Church Headquarters block. This is the view looking south across the reflecting pool and down Main Street. You can see in the distance our new highrise, 222 S Main, with her crown all lit up looking mighty fine.
Do you remember the old Crossroads Mall? I loved it there. I spent most youth there. I saw movies there, shopped there, played video games and ate there. A wonderful place. However, when you looked at the mall of the exterior, it was really ugly. Massive beige brick walls with a few entrances and some signage on the outside. Nothing to get too excited about. Well, this shot below is looking south across South Temple from Temple Square. In the old days, this used to be the entrance to the Crossroads Mall. Picture a giant beige brick wall, at the top you had windows for what used to be a restaurant, then at ground level on the left you had McDonald's and on the right you had Borders Books. Now, you have this. So much better don't you think?
Metcom Studios recently built a beautiful building on 362 South 500 East. It is a beautiful building and adds a great deal to that neighborhood. A wonderful addition to our city. You can check them out here.
This is a photo of their new building that I recently took.
Here is a photo of the beautiful public library here in Salt Lake City. The library was designed by Moshe Safdie. Much more info on the library can be found at Wikipedia.
South Temple has sure changed over the last couple of years. I think that it looks great with all of the new additions that have been built. This picture is from last night and is of the new office building at the City Creek Center. I really like that it is all brick and has that old-time classical look to it. This building has great character to it. For those of you who don't know, this is where the South Temple entrance to the ZCMI food court was.
June 1, 2011
222 S Main is Salt Lake's premier office space. A brand new high-rise in downtown Salt Lake City. It is located right on Main Street. Right next ot a TRAX stop and the Gallivan Center. Downtown continues to get more and more exciting with everything happening. The great thing is that this building is almost full and the need is coming for another tower downtown. I can't wait as I know that Hamilton Partners has plans for another one on the corner of 100 South and Main. Hamilton Partners did such a great job with 222 S Main that it makes me very excited to see what they do with the one a block up. Maybe it could be called 111 S Main????
Well, I'm back to blogging about Salt Lake. I don't know why I stopped for a year. Anyway, a lot is happening with the new Courthouse, the many apartments, condos, office, etc going in downtown, most who have not been around for a while would have a tough time recognizing the place. That brings me to this photo I took on Main Street a few months back. In the photo, everything from the Montgomery Ward and to the south (right) of it are slated for demolition. This would also take out the Prudential Building which people either really like or really hate. The Prudential is the one with the spires on top of it. The Montgomery Ward building is the red brick one. Future plans call for a 20-25 story office tower where the Montgomery Ward building is and then from the Prudential building and the little one's next to it a "Broadway Style" theater that would seat about 2,400. The theater is sorely needed in this city as Capitol Theater just can't support the shows or the numbers of people that want to see the shows anymore. I imagine that in the next couple of years this block should look drastically different.
