Construction Begins on Sandy Transit-Oriented Development

Government representatives, employees and other community figures broke ground Tuesday on the East Village, Utah’s first transit-oriented development venture.

The mixed use development got underway with groundbreaking of Phase I of the $42.6 million mixed use development, which includes a 271 unit apartment complex. It will have a density of 50 units per acre with a parking stall ratio of 1.4 stalls per unit. Four additional phases are planned, which will total over 1.4 million square feet of development.

The East Village, in Sandy, is intended to be a model for future development around transit stations that incorporate mixed-use development around major transit infrastructure. Utah Business

Halting urban sprawl may improve social interaction

Wasatch Front leaders who seek to halt urban sprawl and instead develop new town centers around transit hubs might do more than just reduce traffic congestion and pollution — they may also make social interaction much easier, fueling more innovation and creativity locally.

That’s according to a Steven Farber, a University of Utah geography professor who just published, along with Xiao Li, research in the Journal of Transport Geography about how social interaction is affected by sprawl or centralization.

The consortium envisions that many people would live in buildings that have businesses on the first floor, offices on the second and residences above that. Town centers would be designed to allow people to live, work and play in the same area so they would commute less. Salt Lake Tribune

University of Utah OKs housing space for budding entrepreneurs

Students interested in starting a business could live, work and perfect their ideas in one place at a building center planned for the University of Utah.

The school’s board of trustees approved the design and program for the Lassonde Living Learning Center Tuesday, which is slated to house about 400 students when it opens in Fall 2016.

The new project will be similar to the Marriott Honors Residential Scholars Community that opened its doors last year, but would instead offer workshops, materials, computers and business lunch space as well as spots for competitions and events. Salt Lake Tribune

Utah apartments for homeless veterans to open

Homeless veterans will begin moving into the new Valor House apartments on Monday if final agreements between Veterans Affairs and the Salt Lake City Housing Authority are inked as expected this week.

The $4.5 million Valor House, an innovative joint project that is being built to energy-efficient standards, has been under construction southwest of the George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center since December 2011.

Valor House will be owned and operated by the housing authority, which will receive reimbursement for housing homeless veterans. The VA chipped in $2 million of the cost and is providing a 75-year land lease for $1 per year. Salt Lake Tribune

Taylorsville Business Park Envisioned on Ex-landfill

As a reclaimed landfill and former gravel pit, the parcel at 6200 South and Bangerter Highway was a difficult sell. In the decade since the site was cleaned up, city officials still couldn’t persuade businesses to set up shop.

That could change. The Taylorsville City Council, sitting as the Redevelopment Agency board, has approved a plan to create the Bennion Point Economic Development Area (EDA).

Now, the city will be able to use up to $14 million in tax increment — the taxes generated from the increased assessed value of a property within the area — to reimburse some of the infrastructure costs incurred by companies that choose to locate there.

Work to remediate the property, which was used as a gravel pit when the Utah Department of Transportation built the Bangerter Highway and as a Salt Lake County landfill, was completed in 2002. However, the additional costs of grading and adding infrastructure such as roads and sewers have made the 130-acre plot unattractive to developers, according to Donald Adams, Taylorsville economic development director.

City officials hope the EDA plan, approved 4-0 Wednesday at a Redevelopment Agency meeting, will turn the vacant land into a thriving business park adjacent to a few residential areas.

The plan envisions 14 acres with nearly 60 single family homes added near existing homes that are just outside the EDA; 9 acres of commercial and retail enterprises, such as a convenience store, a couple of fast-food restaurants and strip malls; 10 acres of offices; and 51 acres of flex space, or buildings that can be used for offices or light industrial purposes. The remaining acreage is for roads, parks and open space.


Lewis Young Robertson & Burningham Inc., a Salt Lake City firm commissioned to do a cost/benefit analysis, estimates that investing the tax increment in the EDA has the potential to bring $91.6 million in private investment and at least 800 jobs to Taylorsville.

Tax increment will be used for 15 years or until the amount reaches $14 million, whichever comes first. For now, the land is tax-exempt because it is owned by either the Utah Department of Transportation or Taylorsville.

Another benefit of putting a business park at the location is that commercial traffic will flow opposite of the morning and evening rush hours on heavily used 6200 South, the report says. It added that traffic patterns, in turn, will cut down on the $90 million to $100 million in road improvements that would eventually be needed if the area were to become primarily residential. Salt Lake Tribune

Kennedy Wilson Acquires Sandpiper Apartments in Hollady

International real estate investment and services firm Kennedy Wilson (NYSE: KW) announced the
acquisition of Sandpiper Apartments, a 366-unit multifamily community in Holladay, Utah. The company
purchased the property for $43.5 million, investing $12 million of equity in the transaction and assuming
approximately $31.5 million of financing with Centerline Financial at 4.9 percent with eight years
remaining.

Bob Hart, president of KW Multifamily Management Group, said, “Holladay is considered one of the
most affluent communities in the Salt Lake County MSA, and the property is in close proximity to major
freeways, the Downtown Central Business District, Salt Lake City International Airport and Park City as
well as some of the best schools and largest employers in the area.”

The property, nestled in a prestigious residential neighborhood, consists of 46 buildings on 36 acres and
was completed in 1999. Kennedy Wilson plans to reposition the property with more than $5 million of
renovations, including a new leasing facility, interior unit upgrades, and new fitness center and
landscaping enhancements.

Kennedy Wilson, together with its institutional partners, has acquired approximately $6.8 billion of real
estate and real estate related debt since the beginning of 2010. The company’s multifamily portfolio in the
U.S., Ireland and Japan totals 14,613 units. Utah Business

Salt Lake City RDA Loans $4.5 Million to Broadway Park Lofts

Board votes unanimously to finish project halted by housing crash.

The Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency is pumping new blood, in the form of a $4.5 million loan, into the partially finished Broadway Lofts near Pioneer Park.

"The significance is we finally have a rock-solid developer to finish the project," said Kyle LaMalfa, chairman of the RDA board, which is made up of the Salt Lake City Council.

Ken Milo, the original developer of the high-rise condo project nestled on the east side of 300 South, across from Pioneer Park between 300 and 400 West, ran into hard times in 2009 when the economy and the housing market hit the skids.

But the RDA continued to look at the project as a prime example of future urban living. Earlier this year, the RDA was poised to loan Milo $4.5 million to finish the project, but the deal fell apart.

Enter Micah Peters and James Chellis, who formed BPL South Tower LLC. They acquired the unfinished project for $3.5 million, according to an RDA report, and doubled back to the RDA for a $4.5 million loan.
Tuesday, the board unanimously approved the loan that is expected to be repaid in two years.

"The loft project brings with it an urban lifestyle, like none other [in Salt Lake City]," LaMalfa said. "It’s for people who want to downsize and don’t need a lot of square footage, but want to be in proximity to what’s happening downtown."

It is expected to be completed by the end of 2013. Salt Lake Tribune

Construction underway for $45 million apartment community in Utah

Sprawling over 6.2-acres, the multi-phase $45 million mixed-use development, will offer a total of 311 luxury apartment homes along with a three-story office building upon completion.

Upon the completion of Phase I, this one acre of land that incorporates the new paved trail will be dedicated as greenbelt open space. The green belt open space will provide residences and the general public easy access to the trail system that ties into the Murray Parks Trail System and the Salt Lake County's Master Planned Trail System, which includes the Jordan River Parkway's 40-mile network of trails.

Replicating the historic architecture of the Salt Lake City civic and residential buildings, the new apartment community has incorporated brick, stucco and Hardie board fiber cement siding exteriors, as well as tree-lined sidewalks and landscaped streetscapes. All residents are provided with interior corridor entrances to their private residences. All five floors at Birkhill on Main are serviced by two elevators, adjacent to the entry lobby, and a four-level controlled access parking garage. Each tenant receives a secured, covered parking stall. A $1.7 million parking garage structure is also featured in the community to provide convenient access to the apartments from the level they park their car on.

Designed to complement the surrounding neighborhoods, Birkhill Apartments upon completion, will aim at providing quality housing for families earning between 25% and 43% of the area median income.

Construction will begin on Phase II in June 2013, which will add 65 more apartment homes. Phase III will include 109 additional apartment homes; while Phase IV will feature a three-story, 35,400 square feet office building. Phases II and III are anticipated to complete by 2016. The timing of Phase IV is based upon pre-leasing. Phase I of the Birkhill on Main is expected to complete by the end of March 2013. World InteriorDesign Network

More people buying Salt Lake City condos with cash

More buyers are paying hard cash for condominiums, the Salt Lake Board of Realtors reports.

Data collected by the board show 103 condo units were bought with cash in the first half of this year within an area of Salt Lake City bounded by 300 North, 1000 East, 900 South and 600 West.

Realtors offer several reasons. Strict rules governing Federal Housing Administration loans have made large numbers of condo units ineligible for low-down-payment insured mortgages. That has cut buyers off from a crucial source of low-cost mortgage money, keeping the condo market relatively anemic and giving cash buyers the upper hand in negotiations with sellers.

Interest rates and the stock market are factors, too. Yields on CDs, money-market accounts, Treasuries, savings accounts, checking accounts and other savings instruments have shrunk to almost zero. At the same time, stocks have become riskier and less certain to produce profits. Both trends have led many cash-rich investors to look at real estate, including the condo market.

In the area that Realtor Babs DeLay tracks, the average list price of condos on the market was $308,665, the average sale-pending price was $207,234, and the average completed-sale price was $209,517. Data accumulated by the Board of Realtors show the median price of condos sold in the first half of 2012 was $164,000, slightly lower than the median during the same time last year.

Dave Anderton, a spokesman for the Realtors group, said demand for condos is likely to push prices higher in a year or two. Salt Lake Tribune