SALT LAKE CITY — Members of the Salt Lake City Council had a surprise for Councilwoman Victoria Petro as she led her final meeting.
After a few remarks, they presented her with a large shadowbox filled with references to her time as the City Council chairwoman — a position that changes every year. It included a City Council baseball jersey as a reference to moments involving three baseball stadiums discussed in 2024 as well as a few other items, including a tribute to her dog and a replica of “The Peaks,” an art feature installed outside of the city airport this year.
It also contained a Utah Jazz collector’s patch and pin and a commemorative ticket from the first Utah Hockey Club game, references to massive downtown changes that the City Council weighed for this year — the latter being a team still in Arizona when the year began.
“It was anything but a quiet year,” Salt Lake City Councilman Chris Wharton said during the Dec. 10 meeting. “This year, we spearheaded … generational projects and discussions that will change the literal landscape of the city for decades to come.”
Petro joked that her colleagues underestimated the size of a Rose Park bungalow, but she found enough space in a hallway for it. She agrees that this past year was “generational,” intense and pivotal. Mulling the year a few more seconds, she decided that “catalytic” might be the best way to describe everything that happened in Salt Lake City this year.
“We are not about transformation. We’re about catalyzing the good,” she told KSL.com.
A busy 2024
With changes to building heights, the adoption of the city’s first anti-gentrification plan, and construction beginning on the city’s first regional park in over six decades, 2023 may have been a transformative year for Salt Lake City. It didn’t take long for 2024 to overshadow it, though.
By March 1, the Utah Legislature had passed a pair of bills that set up the framework for Utah to entice the NHL and MLB sometime in the future — shaking up about 200 acres across downtown and the west side in the process. Smith Entertainment Group acquired the Arizona Coyotes a month later, relocating the team to Salt Lake City. That alone triggered months of intense public negotiations between the group’s co-founders, Ryan and Ashley Smith, and the city over a landmark agreement involving redevelopment and a 0.5% sales tax increase, which was completed in October.
Salt Lake City landed the 2034 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in July. It bid farewell to the Salt Lake Bees in September as the team moved to Daybreak.
The city’s skyline also drastically changed this year. Astra Tower, a 451-foot downtown high-rise, opened over the summer, ending the Wells Fargo Center’s run as the tallest building in the city after 26 years. It’s located a few blocks west of The Worthington, another high-rise that opened this year that could welcome new heights east of downtown still to come, showing how the city’s growth could spill outside of the traditional downtown boundaries.
Beyond sports and growth, 2024 was also a year of protest. While the Israel-Hamas war simmered overseas, pro-Palestine advocates called on Salt Lake City leaders to pass a ceasefire resolution. After several long meetings, some disruptions and tense moments, the City Council passed a resolution in February calling for peace in the Middle East.
Months later, 19 people were arrested, and dozens of tents were dismantled after police cracked down on war protests during graduation week at the University of Utah. It mirrored similar protests that broke out across the country at the time.
These marked some of the notable 2024 city happenings.
“In what other year would us bringing a hospital to the downtown area … be like a barely reported blip on the radar?” Petro said with a chuckle.
Key moments from 2024 in Salt Lake City
- February: Salt Lake City passes a resolution calling for peace amid fighting between Israel and Hamas. The measure comes after several heated City Council meetings, during which Palestine advocates called for a resolution. The sometimes confrontational meetings led to a change to City Council meetings this year, which now cap general public comments at one hour.
- March: Construction begins on 2100 South in Sugar House, marking the last of a few major road overhauls in the city. A historic building partially torn down in the Granary District without permission sparks preservation reform in the city.
- April: Smith Entertainment Group acquires the Arizona Coyotes in a deal that relocates the team to Utah. Public negotiations with Salt Lake City over a district around the Delta Center begin, too, sparking a process that lasts into October. Also in April, 19 people were arrested for war-related protests at the University of Utah.
- July: Salt Lake City is awarded the 2034 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, ushering in a potential new wave of funding for major projects that could define the city in the future.
- August: Ground breaks on a new University of Utah baseball stadium near the university campus, following an agreement with the city earlier in the year to build it on a portion of Sunnyside Park. The team will play in Smith’s Ballpark one more season before the next stadium opens in 2026.
- September: The Salt Lake Bees play their final game at Smith’s Ballpark. The team will play in South Jordan’s Daybreak neighborhood next season, while the Redevelopment Agency of Salt Lake City revealed three concept options for the ballpark’s land in December.
- October: Salt Lake City leaders approve a partnership agreement and a 0.5% sales tax increase tied to a “sports, entertainment, culture and convention district” surrounding a remodeled Delta Center. The future remodel, scheduled to begin in phases starting in 2025, aims to make the arena better equipped to handle NHL games. The Utah Hockey Club makes its official debut a week later. City leaders also approve a rezone allowing Intermountain Health to build a new “urban hospital” near downtown.
- November: Residents pass a $730 million general obligation bond to modify city school buildings drastically. Abravanal Hall, caught in the middle of downtown plans, lands on the National Register of Historic Places, in the latest step of preservation plans.
- December: City leaders approve a rezone of 93 acres at the Power District, potentially bringing in buildings up to 400 feet tall. The district could include a future MLB stadium should Utah land a team by mid-2032. State leaders agree to pay up to $900 million toward the stadium through a bill earlier in the year that also set up a new Utah Fairpark Area Investment and Restoration District. The city RDA also approves plans for a new Rio Grande District in December, while the city’s library system approves a resolution that could help librarians formally unionize in 2025.
The City Council ultimately divvied up everything based on deadlines, many of which were imposed by bills passed by the Utah Legislature. City staff picked up a lot of the legwork that normally takes much longer to complete so that the city could meet deadlines.
“I never want to hear about how efficient the private sector is. At the public sector, we handled all of these opportunities,” Petro said, listing all the major negotiations that took place at the same time city leaders took up a $2 billion budget. “I don’t ever again want to hear that fallacy that the public sector isn’t efficient or effective.”
What to expect in 2025 and beyond
Some 2024 themes are expected to play out again next year and beyond.
State leaders this month called on Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall to present them with updates to public safety and homelessness over the concerns they have about policing and criminal justice “inadequacies.” That could result in more legislation with imposed deadlines.
There’s also plenty of carryover from 2024 happenings. City leaders expect “refinements” to agreements with Smith Entertainment Group and the Larry H. Miller Company, while Salt Lake County leaders anticipate their lease negotiations with Smith Entertainment Group over its plans will pick up in 2025. Delta Center renovations are expected to pick up in 2025, if and when all entities sign off on the project.
Of course, unforeseen updates could also shape 2025. The county, for example, is now planning to move into a new Midvale headquarters by 2026. County leaders say they intend to launch a “review process” soon to determine the future of the current Salt Lake City headquarters space.
But Petro expects that this year’s Olympics designation will fuel more long-term projects over the next decade. It could spark funding for city-transforming projects like a fourth TRAX line, a “green loop” surrounding the city and a completely new configuration of downtown Main Street.
“We need to focus on the policies that get us through the Olympics, the building of these entertainment districts and the doubling of the state population,” Petro said.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
