Downtown renaissance: Utah's capital city is finding new life.

• Author: Sutherland, Spencer
• Position: Focus

Downtown Salt Lake City has always been the state's preeminent business district. But in the early 2000s, something new started to happen. A number of companies decided to leave downtown and head for the suburbs. First it was Cottonwood Heights and Sandy, now the area between Draper and Lehi has become the new hotspot for corporate headquarters, especially in the tech sector.

There were a number of reasons for the suburban flight. Though Salt Lake City saw major infrastructure upgrades leading up to the 2002 Winter Olympics, including improvements to I-15 and light rail, there were still perceptions that it was hard to get downtown and there wasn't enough parking. Throw in a lack of housing and the decline of Crossroads Mall and the ZCMI Center, and it's easy to see why businesses decided to leave downtown.

But with the recent completion of the 111 South Main and 222 South Main high-rises, combined with the addition of the City Creek Center and other new housing developments, downtown Salt Lake City has seen a recent resurgence in commercial real estate activity.

A NEW VIBE DOWNTOWN

"Downtown real estate has been fairly active during 2016 and the first quarter of 2017," says Eric Smith, senior vice president at commercial real estate firm CBRE. "A lot of that activity has been based on the new 111 South Main coming online, but ever since City Creek came downtown you've had a change of mindset for companies and tenants wanting to be in the downtown market."

What City Creek brought to the area, Smith explains, was an amenity base that had been lacking downtown--high-end shopping, dining, entertainment and housing. "City Creek really changed the landscape of downtown into a live-work-play environment like you have in other major cities across the country," he says. "That's when tenants stopped looking to move out of downtown and into the suburbs."

Chris Kirk, managing director of CBC Advisors, calls the recent downtown growth "a bit of a renaissance." Much like the rest of the country, Salt Lake City is seeing a trend toward urban living, and the newly completed downtown apartments and condos are filling up quickly.

"In the past, people would drive to their building, do their work and go back home," Kirk says. "But now there's a completely different feeling when you walk around downtown. There's a vibe and an urbanization here. There are people pushing strollers and walking dogs. At lunchtime there are business people going to lunch. People...