Ballpark neighborhood community members meet to discuss redevelopment

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Residents, developers, and business owners came together to discuss redeveloping the Ballpark neighborhood, the Ballpark NEXT plan and recent issues with funding.

The Ballpark NEXT plan will reuse the stadium, keeping part of the stadium and some of the field intact, but it will also change the area beyond the stadium to create new housing, a library, fire station, a park, and other community features. The western portion of the stadium is currently planned to become an event and concert venue.

The event was organized by Ballpark Action Team and Building Salt Lake. It was a panel discussion moderated by Taylor Anderson of Building Salt Lake and featured developers from Maven, Kimball Investments, Urban Alfandre, and GIV Group/Developed by Women.

Heather Roberts, the programs director for Fit to Recover, attended the meeting, and she told ABC4 that because their organization is located in the Ballpark Neighborhood, “It’s really important to us to know like what’s happening here, and what kinds of things are changing or being implemented.”

At the meeting, community members had a chance to ask developers questions about their concerns with the Ballpark NEXT plan, like the lack of green and open space in the plan and what pressures additional apartment buildings are going to place on this neighborhood.

The biggest concern at the meeting was funding. Originally, the city was anticipating $100 million in funding, but now the amount of money is going to be significantly lower, at $5 million. Several of the developers said that they were not depending on that money in their plans.

Melissa Jensen with GIV Group/Developed by Women said that they’re now going to be focused on finding other partnerships in order to provide funding, and that in the development world, $100 million does not go that far, so it is not a major loss.

Tessa Arneson with Maven said that her main concern from the beginning has been keeping the money within the community, to make sure that it goes back to Ballpark, whether that be $5 or $100 million.

The developers on the panel also discussed topics like building community, public art, taking input from residents, empowering women and minority business owners, retail space, affordable communities, fostering intergenerational communities, and many more over the course of the two-hour event.

There are still questions about the plans for sections of underutilized land and other community concerns, but the Ballpark NEXT plan is still a draft, and they are continuing to take input from the public at events like this one.

You can learn more about the Ballpark NEXT plan on the Salt Lake City Community Reinvestment Agency website.