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SALT LAKE CITY — There was a brief window in South Temple Tower's history where it transformed the Salt Lake City skyline.
While other skyscrapers have since overshadowed it over the past 56 years, the building is once again set to transform the city.
The global development company Hines announced Friday it has acquired the 24-story building with the intention of renovating the building and converting 217,000 square feet of office space into a 255-unit "luxury multifamily tower" in the near future. The terms of the deal weren't disclosed but the agreement was made last week.
The project is expected to begin at the start of 2023. It's the first project of its kind in company history anywhere in the world, according to Dusty Harris, the senior managing director of Hines.
"The intent is to reuse much of this building as possible; for environmental and sustainable reasons, we want to use as much of the building as possible," said Dusty Harris, the senior managing director of Hines, adding that the project aims to help with downtown Salt Lake City's rapid growth and housing needs.
A shift in markets
The South Temple Tower, located at 136 E. South Temple, was completed in 1966 under the original name of the University Club Building. The 274-foot office building served as downtown's tallest skyscraper before The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Office Building was completed in the early 1970s.
It doesn't even register in the top 10 tallest buildings today, especially with a slew of new buildings set to drastically alter the cityscape in the next few years to match the city's fastest-growing section.
While the South Temple Tower functioned just fine over the years, the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench into companies' desire for its office space. Harris said that since the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the office space market is on the decline while the residential housing market demand hasn't shown any signs of slowing down.
Harris said he wouldn't be surprised if Hines uses this office-to-residential building template in the future but it's something that will likely be handled on a case-by-case basis because office and residential buildings are designed so differently. Also, new, state-of-the-art office buildings are actually doing quite well but some of the older buildings aren't.
In this case, South Temple Tower's smaller floor plates and fewer parking options made it difficult to attract businesses to want to work there. There are only a "handful" of tenants across different industries that use the building as office space today, who are aware of the new plans, according to Harris.
"There is not a one-size-fits-all for an office building to residential conversion," he said. "I think they're highly complicated. ... I do not expect every office building in Salt Lake to be converted to residential. In fact, I'm quite optimistic about the future of the office but I think it will be the very best buildings that continue to thrive and do fine on the office front. Then there are buildings like the one we just bought that's struggled as an office building for a very long time."
The floor-level retail and restaurant space is likely to stay, though there may be some changes to what that looks like in the future.
Filling a need for more housing
Downtown Salt Lake City and Central City in District 4 grew by nearly 6,500 people between 2010 and 2020, leading all city districts. The next wave of new structures is projected to double downtown's residential capacity and offer all sorts of new businesses in the next 24 to 30 months, too.
One of these projects is the Main Street Tower overseen by Hines. The residential structure has been the focus of scrutiny because the company knocked down the century-old Utah Pantages Theater earlier this year to make way for the 31-story residential high-rise. A group that tried to save the building sued the company and the city over the plans; court records show the case was dismissed last month.
Other projects include the Astra Tower, which stands to replace the Wells Fargo Center as Utah's tallest building when it's completed in the next few years. The next wave is projected to add 4,000 new units.
By converting the South Temple Tower into housing, the city stands to add 255 apartment units of differing floorplanning — studios, and one-and-two-bedroom homes — without the need for new construction. Hines officials said they are confident that the tower offers "a successful conversion process" because of its downtown location, natural lighting capability and its floor plan designs. The architecture firm Hickock Cole is set to help redesign the floors into housing units.
Harris said the company is also exploring the idea of renovating the exterior of the building, which may include more windows.
"Light spaces are livable spaces," he said. "We're trying to do that but it's too early for me to definitely (say) what we're going to do there."
Since the building was only acquired this month, Hines doesn't have a clear timetable yet for the project to be completed. Harris said it "seems reasonable" that it will be completed by 2025 just because it will be a complex project.
