Salt Lake Vision and the 2017 Downtown Rising Action Plan

Local leaders recently unveiled the 2017 Downtown Rising Action Plan. The progress report and new goals outlined emerging trends and identified key objectives for continued downtown development that imagines a more family-friendly atmosphere with more community-minded amenities, explained Jason Mathis, executive director of the Downtown Alliance.

The Downtown Alliance is a subgroup of the Salt Lake Chamber, Utah’s largest business membership group. This is the second Downtown Rising Action Plan from the group, and the first plan showed success, including the Eccles Theater, Trax to Salt Lake City International Airport, and nearly 10,000 new residential units.

The seven newly announced priorities are: a downtown school; a sports and entertainment district that benefits The Gateway and Vivint Smart Home Arena; a cultural core place-making and programming effort; investment in transportation; a digital media and arts center; reinvesting in Pioneer Park with infrastructure and a public private management plan; and the development of a technology campus.

Downtown Alliance Executive Director Jason Mathis said of the action plan: “It’s simple, it’s straightforward, it’s consensus-based, it’s direct — and, most importantly, it’s changeable.”

Mathis said there is no “order” to the suggestions but that a public market in the Rio Grande neighborhood — known today for the city’s emergency homeless shelter and open-air drug deals made in plain sight of nearby shoppers and business patrons — could be on the immediate horizon.