UTA reveals its alternative to the Rio Grande Plan for improving Salt Lake Central Station. (2025)

Central Casting

By Benjamin Wood @BjaminWood

DEPOT DISTRICT—The Utah Transit Authority's long-gestating plan for a new headquarters at its flagship (and fledgling) Salt Lake Central Station made its public debut on Wednesday, as members of the Board of Trustees discussed early conceptual designs of what could one day welcome commuters and visitors to the western edge of downtown.

The preliminary designs call for the construction of two six-story towers connected by an enclosed atrium, or "transit hall." UTA staff suggested the building could utilize mass timber for a "warm" and inviting aesthetic, and would incorporate ground-level retail amenities for transit riders with office space in the upper levels, accommodating UTA operations as well as other commercial tenants.

“It does envision that this, rightfully so, should be a vibrant, transit-oriented development center,” said Paul Drake, UTA's director of real estate. “This is the transit gateway to Salt Lake City.”

The current Salt Lake Central Station deposits train passengers onto a bare concrete slab, with little shelter from the elements and virtually no amenities beyond an informational kiosk and a small Amtrak building (affectionately known as the "Amshack") that was intended to be temporary at the time of its construction. UTA's current headquarters are on the other side of the railroad—which includes Union Pacific freight track—in an aging location that Drake said is in need of significant renovation and repair to continue functioning.

“We did a seismic assessment that demonstrated some costly deficiencies in the structure of our existing building,” Drake said. “A new building would cost roughly the same or even less than what it would cost to stay where we’re at.”

The surrounding area is also among the most distressed in Salt Lake City, largely defined by empty, formerly-industrial parcels that fell into disuse as rail operations shifted west and south and after the construction of Interstate 15 severed neighborhood ties while depositing large amounts of suburban car traffic. Many Depot District properties are owned by the city government, but multiple efforts to catalyze redevelopment have failed to get off the ground.

Those hostile conditions have hampered the adoption of transit as a mainstream transportation option. But a recent surge in multifamily residential development around 200 South, planned service expansions by both UTA and Amtrak and the city's selection to host the 2034 Winter Olympics have injected new energy into improving multi-modal connectivity in the state's urban core.

“We’re not just talking about a building," said Sean Murphy, a facility development manager with UTA. "This is a fully re-envisioned transit station and the focus is very much on the customer experience, ease of connection between different modalities.”

In April, the Salt Lake Redevelopment Agency (RDA) released it's latest proposals for transforming the depot district, proposing a dense, mixed-use neighborhood clustered around a pedestrian-oriented "festival street" on 300 South and new plazas and mid-block walkways that encourage walking, cycling and transit, with private car traffic and parking largely pushed to the neighborhood's perimeter.

At the same time, a citizen-led proposal known as the Rio Grande Plan has been gaining steam among residents and policymakers, including a recent endorsement by the Salt Lake County Council and a formal study of the proposal by Salt Lake City. The Rio Grande Plan calls for the abandonment of Salt Lake Central, with passenger rail services instead buried in a so-called "train box" along 500 West, which would allow for the reactivation of Salt Lake City's historic Rio Grande Depot within walking distance of downtown destinations like Pioneer Park and the Delta Center, and the closure of multiple at-grade crossings prone to blockages and collisions.

Wednesday's UTA board meeting opened with public comment, during which five speakers encouraged the transit agency's support of the Rio Grande Plan. No other members of the public offered comment.

UTA leadership has remained functionally neutral on the Rio Grande Plan, not formally opposed to it but open about the daunting political, jurisdictional and engineering challenges it faces. And while Wednesday's discussion of Salt Lake Central's potential redevelopment did not include overt references to burying the railroad along 500 West, board chairman Carlton Christensen noted the difficulty of building down into the ground.

“The soils in this area are a lot of clay—high water table—they’re problematic the deeper you go,” Christensen said. “It’s not an insignificant hurdle.”

Murphy echoed that concern, saying that planners had looked into the feasibility of underground development at Salt Lake Central. It was also noted that using mass timber materials—which are lighter than traditional steel and concrete structures—would allow for a six-story building with less onerous foundational support.

“We did look at it, but then didn’t move forward with other options for building underneath the building and going further and further down,” Murphy said. “It’s approaching 8 feet when you get to groundwater. It’s very close.”

Christensen also remarked on his previous experience as a newly-elected Salt Lake City Councilmember in 1998, when the future of Utah transit was debated and the decision was made to consolidate passenger and freight tracks further west and alongside the freeway. He said he was "flippant" at the time about the need to connect Trax light rail to a central Frontrunner/Amtrak station, and was skeptical of the area's potential growth.

“I never knew or could have imagined how it would develop,” Christensen said.

He said that private developers have seized upon the opportunity of building next to passenger rail services and that it is largely public entities—like UTA and the city RDA—that are now a barrier to progress.

“I think there was always an anticipation there would be something more substantive here,” Christensen said. “I lost hope that I would ever see it. So I’m actually encouraged there is a possibility.”

Trustee Jeff Acerson said that as the plans for Salt Lake Central continue to take shape, it's important that they reflect not just the needs of a UTA headquarters or the needs of a regional train station, but take into account the many different ways the property could be utilized in the future.

“I love what I’m seeing but I’m also understanding this needs to become a center of usage—not just for transit but for businesses, for workers,” he said.