Salt Lake City levies impact fees on new construction to fund capital projects for public safety, roads and parks. In 2013 the council raised the parks portion of the city impact fees from $681 per residential unit to $3,999. While the park-impact fees on residential construction are the highest, the city also imposed a new road-impact fee of $2.68 per sq ft for commercial office space. There was no office-space fee before 2013, and Bruce Bingham of Chicago-based developer Hamilton Partners says it has complicated his company's plans for a new downtown high-rise office building to complement the 222 Main building completed in 2009.

"Salt Lake City is not always at the top of everyone's list when they are looking for office space," Bingham says. "One of the things it had going for it was low taxes and fees and a business-friendly environment." Bingham claims the fee increase has put Salt Lake at a development disadvantage compared to other cities in the West, like Portland, Denver and Phoenix.

Complaints about the fees got a hearing during a Feb. 4 SLC council work session. City staff members presented options for changes to the fees, and Mayor Ralph Becker, who had been in favor of lower fees from the outset, suggested a reduction of park fees to $1,752, but no change to the road fee. According to transcripts of the meeting, council members expressed doubt about the negative effects of the fees, given that they are comparable to others in the region and support downtown amenities like mass transit and recent retail projects such as City Creek Center, which make the area more attractive for developers. The issue of timing was also raised, since the ordinance was passed more than a year ago. After some discussion, the matter was continued to a later date.

Yet to be addressed by the council are rules prohibiting demolition of buildings, which arose after a failed development in the Sugar House area left bare for several years a large corner parcel (dubbed "the Sugar Hole" by locals) in the popular Salt Lake neighborhood. Wanting to prevent a reoccurrence, the city tightened regulations on new developments, requiring owners to have plans, permits and solid financing in place before demolishing any existing structures. Furthermore, restrictions on creating new surface parking lots downtown means that owners may not demolish a building and use the space, even short-term, just for parking.

Vasilios Priskos, a developer and founder of Internet Properties in Salt Lake City owns several parcels containing older, vacant buildings that have, in his estimation, become not only eyesores but also liabilities because of the ordinances. "I agree that parking lots don't make sense everywhere, but as an interim use to generate some income, it's better than leaving a building that's a hazard and an eyesore," he says. "There are really only about a half-dozen buildings this is an issue for but [the city has] this one-size-fits-all ordinance that doesn't work everywhere."

Priskos says because plats in the downtown area tend to be relatively small, purchasing and assembling all the property needed to create a profitable development can take time. In the interim, older buildings often remain abandoned and deteriorate further.

"We have these two ordinances that seem to work against each other, and there is a lot of consternation about how to move forward," Priskos says.

CDOT Wrestles With I-70 Traffic Problems

Project will begin this spring to widen westbound I-70 Twin Tunnel

Colorado drivers are all too familiar with the lengthy delays and frustrations of a Sunday afternoon return from the ski slopes or a summer outing along Interstate 70 to Denver. The worst pinch point has been the section of I-70 from Georgetown to Idaho Springs.

The Colorado Dept. of Transportation and its joint-venture contractor Kraemer-Obayashi completed last year the $106-million Twin Tunnels project, which added a new tunnel bore and one eastbound lane from Idaho Springs interchange to U.S. 6. It expanded the eastbound tunnel to include three lanes, shoulders, improved lighting and a wider tunnel entrance.

This year CDOT will spend an additional $55 million to widen the westbound Twin Tunnel. The project should begin construction this spring and be complete by the end of 2014. CDOT anticipates that together the projects will reduce accidents by an estimated 35% and save Sunday travelers $11.4 million in travel time and fuel costs in 2014.

CDOT says it is also studying a more ambitious plan for the entire I-70 mountain corridor, one proposed by Parsons Corp. The Pasadena, Calif.-based transportation consultant proposed a $3.5-billion plan to add bus, rapid transit and tolled, reversible express lanes along 53 miles of the freeway from Denver's western suburbs to Silverthorne.

The new lanes would be built within the highway's existing medians to save on right-of-way and infrastructure costs. The project would require new bores at the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel.

The public-private partnership calls for express-lane tolls that would vary by time, day of the week and season. Parsons estimates toll revenue during the first 50 years could total $8.6 billion, and the expanded freeway could be completed by 2021. That's nearly 20 years sooner than CDOT anticipated.