New multi-family residential construction has broken ground in south Downtown. PEG Companies’ SevenO2, a 239-unit apartment project at 702 South Main in Salt Lake City, is scheduled for completion in January 2022.

It is replacing Specialized Sales & Leasing, a used-car lot that occupied the northeast quadrant of the 10-acre block zoned D-2.

SevenO2 site, summer 2018. Specialized Sales & Leasing to the left, TRAX to the right. Image courtesy Google Earth.

PEG’s market-rate rental project will add over 250 residents to the nascent south Downtown neighborhood. For decades south Downtown has been a vacuum on urban energy, dominated by boarded buildings, car-sales lots, and auto-service shops.

SevenO2 project site, approximate, in green. Image by Luke Garrott, courtesy Google Earth.

The area may gradually be getting a new feel. Projects to watch are new residential like SevenO2, a new TRAX station at 650 S. Main, new Class-A office space on S. Main, artisan food+beverage investment on State Street, and imminent redevelopment of the Sears Block.

SevenO2 site, bottom, looking north toward Downtown. Photo by Luke Garrott.

Project details

The project will dominate the rather forgettable intersection of 700 South and Main Street, on the southwest. Competition from the other corners is weak (all surface parking lots or vacant buildings), with the Sears corner (SE) the most likely to activate in the near future.

SevenO2 site looking southeast. Sears block, left. Photo by Luke Garrott.

SevenO2 by PEG will be five stories and host 239 units – 60 studio, 121 1-bdrm, and 58 2-bdrm units.

It will supply 238 parking stalls (1:1 ratio) in a structure behind the residential building. An amenity deck will sit on top of the parking garage.

Street presence will be provided by seven walk-up units fronting 700 South, and on Main, by five live/work spaces, along with a “grand lobby” and a leasing office.

Rendering of SevenO2, at the SW corner of 700 S. and Main St. Image courtesy PEG.

The developers were hoping to build 5000 sf of retail space on Main Street, but changed their plans.

Because fire code insists on 30 ft access to buildings, Salt Lake City took the street parking away in front of the project. PEG’s team decided that retail was unviable without parking on Main.

Project manager Ben Davis told Building Salt Lake, “With no parking allowed on Main Street it would have been near impossible to attract tenants so we decided to scrap the retail and go with arguably the next best thing…live-work units.”

The developers did not consider being adjacent to TRAX light rail and the Main Street bike lane sufficient traffic generators for street-level retail.

South Downtown is getting one of its many missing teeth filled. With Central 9th just two blocks away and State Street maturing, SevenO2 may portend a future for the area that few have perceived to this point.