Utah News Dispatch
Remodeling old stadium, SLC officials envision Ballpark becoming ‘a little second downtown’
Rendering of Salt Lake City’s vision for the Ballpark neighborhood after the partial demolition of Smith’s Ballpark. (Courtesy photo)
Salt Lake City’s Ballpark neighborhood likely won’t completely lose its namesake, a final design for Smith’s Ballpark unveiled Tuesday shows.
The 13.5-acre space left behind by the minor league team Salt Lake Bees is set to preserve its west bleachers, with a 3,700 seating capacity, as well as part of the field and other elements at the stadium’s main entrance.
The vision, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said, is a place that accommodates year-round activities, including different sports, concerts and festivals, but is also a more accessible spot preserving “a lot of the green space that the kids in this neighborhood have never touched.”
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“There’s really good bones in this part of the stadium, the steel structure is actually much more sound than we expected it to be before the engineering assessment was done,” Mendenhall said. “So we’re in a good space to preserve this section of the stadium, which is also cost savings to the public when we take it out to it.”
The Salt Lake City Community Reinvestment Agency will review the design and hear public comment on the proposal next Tuesday at 2 p.m. A final decision is expected in late summer, the agency said in a release.
All options are on the table for Smith’s Ballpark, including demolition
The goal, according to the design plan by the firm Perkins&Will, is to bring new life to what has been a city landmark for over 75 years, with walkable streets and prime views of the Wasatch Range.
The spot is designed to host a new fire station, a library branch and housing units with home-ownership options. Also a linear park of about 0.7 acres along 1300 South, as soon as work to bring the Red Butte, Emigration and Parley creeks back to the surface.
Salt Lake City Council member Darin Mano, who represents the area, said that after all plans are completed, he imagines the neighborhood looking a lot like “a little second downtown, or another Sugar House-type of place.”
“Another place where you can go and have great food, grab a drink, work here and live here,” Mano said.
The city has other big plans that could turn the neighborhood into a destination, as well.
“Festival street activation has long been part of our station area plan for the Ballpark neighborhood that is also incorporated here,” Mendenhall said, “which means that West Temple becomes a tree-lined accessible space for markets, different little festivals that can happen, street-facing restaurants, bars and shops.”
There’s also a proposal for a hotel and ground-floor retail along the edges of the development, where the city hopes to accommodate local businesses.
Phase 1 of the development will focus on the partial demolition of the ballpark, while hosting some interim activities and community events on streets and parking lots, in addition to building multi-family housing on the northern surface parking block at the corner of West Temple and Paxton Avenue, and some lower-density units along West Temple.
There isn’t a set timeline on when the full project will be completed. But, the city may issue a development request for proposals late this year. And demolition won’t start for probably a year or two.
With offering different types of housing being one of the community’s priorities, Mano said that the city will watch for developers that can deliver different housing alternatives.
“Some of the things that we’re going to be looking for is who feels confident that they can deliver market rate for sale, family-sized housing, mixed in with what we all know we need, which is affordable housing,” he said
The final design comes after the Ballpark NEXT Design Competition launched after the Bees announced their move to South Jordan in January 2023. That effort highlighted professional, resident and student projects, including a hub for small businesses and a women’s multi-sport venue. Ultimately those ideas helped build the design, Mendenhall said.
