The empty bleachers at Smith’s Ballpark won’t stay quiet for long. Salt Lake City has a plan.
The new final draft of the Community Reinvestment Agency’s Ballpark NEXT Community Design Plan lays out a long-term vision for redeveloping the nearly 15-acre site. The draft envisions a vibrant, mixed-use space with new housing, green space, a library, a new fire station, a hotel, retail shops, two parking garages and an entertainment venue.
“This is a gorgeous green lawn out here, but there's not a kid in the neighborhood that's touched it unless they were escorted on the field by the Bees,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said at the July 1 unveiling. “This needs to be a community-based asset that's open year-round.”
The proposal was informed by more than a year of community engagement and feedback. Its release comes more than two years after the Salt Lake Bees announced their departure for Daybreak in South Jordan.
This proposal now goes to the Community Reinvestment Agency Board, which will discuss it and take public comment at a July 8 meeting. Mendenhall said a final vote would likely happen later this summer. From there, the city would put out its first request for proposal for parts of the project, which city leaders hope to do by the end of 2025.
Officials will have a better idea of when they will break ground by next spring, but Senior Project Manager Lauren Parisi hypothesized the end of 2026 or 2027.
Rather than redeveloping everything at once, the project will roll out in four phases. Phase one includes constructing new housing on the northwest corner of the site. While details are still in the works of what the new housing will look like, Parisi said the full proposal includes more than 450 units. The mayor said having a mix of affordability and types is a priority.
“You will see home ownership opportunities,” Mendenhall said. “You're going to see aging-in-place housing that allows community members who are here today to not have to leave this neighborhood because of affordability or accommodations in their housing. And also family-centric housing.”
The first phase will also lay the groundwork to repurpose the western wing of the stadium into a multi-use entertainment venue.
“It’s the anchor and it’ll really bring life and community back into the stadium,” Parisi said. “We also hope to attract a lot of residents that want to live by an active land-use like that.”
While the city intends to demolish the northern half of the stadium, it would preserve the main entrance and the seating on the west side for reuse. Parisi imagines people sitting there to watch concerts or youth sports out on the field. Where the concourse is now, Parisi said, there would be permanent commercial spaces.
“And then on the very top of the bleachers, there's slated to be a kind of rooftop bar to take in the views of the Wasatch Mountains,” Parisi said. “We hope that it's this architectural gem that's really activated with different types of use.”
The city would also start using West Temple as what it calls a festival street, a place for farmers markets, pop-up shops and cultural events.
With the phased approach, Parisi said the city can try out concepts like the festival street while it continues development.
Three creeks run under 1300 South, and Parisi said the full plan includes bringing those streams to the surface, as well as creating a park.
The proposed street network prioritizes pedestrians and walkability, according to Parisi. The blueprint highlights multiple disparities that Ballpark residents face in comparison to other communities in Salt Lake County, and says thoughtful design can help address those things.
The mayor is proud of the approach the city took to come up with this plan, including hosting a redevelopment design competition to solicit ideas. In her more than a decade in city hall, she said she’s never been this excited about a development project.
“We've never had 13.5 acres in a historic neighborhood so close to downtown that we get to reimagine with the community that the city has full ownership of,” Mendenhall said. “I’m so excited about what the community has told us they want and need, and that these designs that will bring it forward reflect that.”
So that the stadium doesn’t sit dormant in the meantime, Mendenhall said the city is contracting with a yet-to-be-announced private entity to bring in different free community-focused events.
The first one will be a movie night on July 11. It’ll be a family and pet-friendly screening of “Shrek.”
