A rendering presented at a recent meeting of the Salt Lake City Council depicts Intermountain Health's planned hospital campus at the site of the
former Sears store in the downtown area of the city. Shown is the intersection of 800 South and Main Street with a traffic ramp built into Main
Street and a skybridge for access to a parking structure planned for east of the campus.
ON THE SEARS BLOCK IN DOWNTOWN SLC
John Rogers
Business Journal
About the only popular part of Intermountain Health’s presentation before the Salt Lake City Council unveiling its proposal for a new “urban hospital” in downtown Salt Lake City was its plan to leave a place for a beloved taco truck on the site.
Almost three years after Intermountain bought the site of the old Sears store on 800 South between State and Main streets, the huge healthcare company unveiled plans to build a major hospital on the site. Intermountain presented its plans to the council earlier this month.
The large site has sat vacant for the better part of two years since the old Sears structure was razed. Except for a groundwater lake where the store’s basement was, the only thing on the site has been a taco truck that has been popular with lunchtime customers for more than 10 years. The plans shown to the city council include a spot for the taco vendor and other food trucks.
Intermountain has said all along that it intended to build a hospital on the site, but details of that plan have not been publicly discussed until the council presentation. Intermountain officials made public a number of renderings showing concepts for the hospital on what has come to be known as the “Sears block.” Project officials said they have been hammering out logistical details to make their plans fit the site. That included figuring out the internal flow of hospital operations through a vertical campus as compared to a more traditional horizontal one.
Intermountain spokesperson Jess Gomez explained the hospital is a “unique model” for the healthcare provider, as it generally has hospitals in suburban and rural areas. He said that is why this project has moved more slowly than its other projects.
“This is really an exciting opportunity because downtown is growing,” Gomez said. “I think we’re really excited about that opportunity and (we’re) just working through details that need to be made to make sure the community and the city are satisfied — and also to make sure that, first and foremost, our patients are well taken into consideration.”
Another factor that Gomez said figures into the progress of the project is the need for a rezoning of the area to accommodate Intermountain’s plans. A request for rezoning made by Intermountain in 2022, shortly after it tore down the old building, is still pending. The compnay filed a request to rezone the land from downtown support district (D-2) to a central business district (D-1). The rezoning would allow for taller building heights and make way for standard hospital operations. The rezoning application reached the Salt Lake City Planning Commission in March 2023.
The renderings presented to the city council offer the first peek at the concept Intermountain has for the hospital. The plans show that the company would build two towers that are 12 stories high. One tower would front on 800 South and the other on Main Street. Assuming the floors are about the standard 15 to 16 feet tall each, the towers could reach about 200 feet tall, which explains the need for rezoning.
The renderings also show major changes to Main Street to allow underground access to about 1,750 parking stalls it hopes to build in a parking structure west of the main thoroughfare. The renderings show a ramp cut into the middle of Main Street providing ingress to the approximately 10-story parking structure. Plans also call for a large pedestrian skybridge connecting the parking lot to the main hospital campus on the east side of Main Street.
The parking structure is dependent on Intermountain being able to reach an agreement with Ken Garff Automotive Group to buy the necessary property. Intermountain Senior Director of Real Estate Bentley Peay said he believes a deal can be reached.
But as Intermountain revealed the drawings, most council members expressed concerns, implying that the plans had a long way to go to receive city approval.
Shown is one of a pair of site plans for a hospital to be built in downtown Salt Lake City presented to the city council by Intermountain Health.“I think that we asked you for a mile and we got a couple inches,” said Councilman Alejandro Puy after seeing the renderings. “I see a suburban hospital with less grass, less surface parking. The concepts show that Intermountain intends to activate the portions of the hospital fronting State and Main streets by as much as 70 percent. Along 700 South and 800 South, Intermountain would activate its buildings by no more than 50 percent.”
Considered desirable, “activation” includes things like hospital admission and reception areas, gift shops, office lobbies, conference centers, coffee shops and pharmacies — things that would encourage street-level interaction with the facility by pedestrians. Landscaped open space on the 700 South side of the block and the food truck accommodation would add to the desired activation.
Councilman Darin Mano told Building Salt Lake after the hearing that the open space proposed in the plans was enticing, given the downtown area is severely underserved by parks. But he said he was leaning toward voting against the rezoning request given the plan’s lack of street-level activation.
“The updated drawings we received today don’t satisfy my concerns for street activation and as such I lean toward voting against the rezone,” Mano said. “The biggest public benefit I see in their current proposal is publicly accessible open space in a part of the city that greatly lacks public park space.”
Given the concerns raised at the first viewing of Intermountain Health’s plans for the new downtown hospital, it may take significant negotiations to arrive at a final plan acceptable to all parties. Salt Lake City Council Chairwoman Victoria Petro said the council is considering a July 9 public hearing but may not vote until August, at the earliest.