Roads to Understanding: Sugar House needs people to shop, Central Ninth neighborhood trying to activate an underpass

SALT LAKE CITY — If you’ve driven along 2100 South east of 700 East anytime in the last year, you know, the construction traffic can be maddening and the businesses are hard to access.

But, Sugar House advocates say there is light at the end of the tunnel — and they need people to help keep their businesses alive in the meantime.

“We need people to come back and shop and stop talking about how, you know, there’s no parking in Sugar House, the traffic is terrible in Sugar House,” said Landon Clark, chair of the Sugar House Community Council.

As part of KSL TV’s Roads to Understanding, KSL visited communities on the east side of Salt Lake City including Sugar House and the Central Ninth neighborhood east of Interstate 15.

Easier access to Sugar House

The Sugar House pipeline replacement and expansion project along 2100 South to the east of Highland Drive is supposed to be finished in the coming weeks, and the rest of it done by next year. Sugar House has a total of six ongoing construction projects.

“It’s going to allow a lot of people to get here, you know, via different means, whether it’s biking, walking, mass transit, and we embrace that,” said Brandon Hill, a co-chair of the Sugar House Chamber of Commerce about the completion of the 2100 South project.

But in the interim, Hill and Clark said one of their biggest needs is helping these businesses stay alive. And it’s gotten so bad that say they’ve pitched the city to start running ads to get people back in.

“We’re looking at the holiday season coming up, it’s really important the people know that Sugar House will be open, the construction will stop and people can get in and out,” Hill said.

Another issue facing Sugar House, according to Hill, is how tall buildings should be.

“We have the Wells Fargo building put up. So there’s some other projects we kind of heard whispers about. (Developers) are looking for a little more density,” Clark said.

Hill and Clark both said that the construction and height issues are both a reflection of the area’s need to accommodate a rapidly growing area just outside of the downtown.

Central Ninth says unkept underpass was dividing the neighborhood

Further west of Sugar House — one need of the Central Ninth area was a big underpass cleanup which around 60 volunteers showed up recently to help make a reality.

“We hauled out of, like, almost two dumpster’s full worth of trash. We, took down weeds,” said Doug Flagler, chair of the Central Ninth Community Council.

Underneath where I-15 exits to West Temple, the Central Ninth community stretches from State Street a few blocks west. And the largely industrial area now has a safer, more walkable area.

“You know, we hear about political division, but we literally have a freeway offramp that divides our neighborhood and makes it hard for people from one side to get to the other,” Flagler said. “For us, this is a big barrier. It’s about a 10-minute extra walk for us to get around the freeway off ramps. And that’s assuming that, you know, the each side of the underpass is open.”

What will go in the now open space is yet to be determined. Flagler said they’re currently taking community input and even had former RSL star goalie Nick Romando reach out about a futsal court.

Flagler said one of his community’s biggest needs — balancing two sides of his changing neighborhood.