{"id":234324,"date":"2025-10-18T16:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T16:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/234324\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T16:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T16:30:08","slug":"how-should-slc-handle-lds-hospital-site-district-3-candidates-weigh-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/234324\/","title":{"rendered":"How should SLC handle LDS Hospital site? District 3 candidates weigh in."},"content":{"rendered":"

When residents of Salt Lake City\u2019s oldest neighborhood contemplate the prospect of moving LDS Hospital\u2019s massive 120-year-old presence<\/a> out of the Avenues, for many it\u2019s with a wary eye on the recent past.<\/p>\n

A wide coalition of neighbors bitterly opposed a project in the upper Avenues called Capitol Park Cottages<\/a>, where Ivory Homes is building 21 home lots on a once-treasured piece of open space<\/a> surrounded by residential properties at about 675 N. F Street.<\/p>\n

Frustration with City Hall\u2019s late 2022 approval of additional density<\/a> for that 3.2-acre subdivision of single-family and twin homes with accessory dwellings seems so far one of the only issues that fully unites the five candidates running for the City Council seat for District 3, which represents the area.<\/a><\/p>\n

[Read more: Salt Lake City Council District 3 voter guide<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

That includes incumbent Chris Wharton, who is seeking a rare third term in the seat as he faces four challengers on the ballot this November. <\/p>\n

Wharton, who voted against the Ivory Homes project at a crucial juncture, joins his opponents on the debate trail in giving the public process for approving what many refer to as \u201cF Street\u201d a firm thumbs-down.<\/p>\n

Some of that shared wariness now underlies many questions over what might happen with upwards of 15 acres in the neighborhood when LDS Hospital moves its operations \u2014 just as mail-in ballots in the Nov. 4 city election start to reach prospective voters.<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s even while the hospital\u2019s owner, Intermountain Health, hasn\u2019t made clear its future plans<\/a>, clouding the question of exactly when a prospective move might come before the City Council.<\/p>\n

Future yet to come into focus<\/p>\n

Intermountain publicly announced two years ago<\/a> that it intends to shift staff and services away from the sizable landmark hospital and its generous Avenues footprint centered at 8th Avenue and C Street, as part of building a new hospital downtown.<\/p>\n

Along with transitioning to a future high-rise medical hub on the vacated former Sears site<\/a> at 754 S. State, sources familiar with the discussions have said<\/a> Intermountain intends to demolish at least part of the aging LDS Hospital building and support facilities, possibly including adjoining physicians and surgical offices and two parking structures.<\/p>\n

Intermountain brass have said it plans to eventually transition staffers downtown<\/a>, though Intermountain spokesperson Jess Gomez declined to offer any additional details on the health care chain\u2019s future plans for LDS Hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not been involved in any discussions with any of the candidates on this matter,\u201d Gomez said in a statement. \u201cWe continue to focus on providing world-class health care at LDS Hospital and plan to do so in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

A little more than a year ago, Intermountain\u2019s zoning request to build a tower-laden, block-size urban hospital with ambulance services on the flattened Sears location<\/a> drew cautious approval from the City Council.<\/p>\n

Intermountain hasn\u2019t released additional information on its move nor substantially updated design plans for the new hospital at the Sears site since.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s a D3 election issue<\/p>\n

Candidates for Salt Lake City Council District 3, clockwise from top left: Blake McClary; Chris Wharton; Liddy Huntsman; Jake Seastrand; and David Berg.<\/p>\n

Wharton<\/a>, an attorney and current City Council chair who has held the seat for eight years, is going up this election season against software executive Blake McClary<\/a>; foundation board member and diabetes-care advocate Liddy Huntsman-Hernandez<\/a>; health care worker David Berg<\/a>; and judicial assistant and business owner Jake Seastrand<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The municipal race is one of three contested elections for City Council this year that will be decided via ranked choice voting.<\/p>\n

Last week, questions about LDS Hospital\u2019s future bubbled up alongside such big-sky issues as public safety, housing, homelessness, traffic-calming and city budgets in the race for District 3, which spans the Avenues, Capitol Hill, Federal Heights and parts of the Marmalade and Guadalupe neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

McClary unveiled a detailed plan for affordable, family-friendly town homes and park-size green spaces on as many as 14 parcels Intermountain owns there \u2014 and sought to criticize Wharton for not giving the future redevelopment adequate attention. <\/p>\n

The Avenues resident is calling on Salt Lake City to explore buying the property from Intermountain through the city\u2019s Community Reinvestment Agency or entering into a public-private partnership to guide its development.<\/p>\n

He contends there has been \u201cno attempt\u201d at engaging with Intermountain to begin planning what will happen on that footprint between C and D streets \u2014 other than a scant sentence or two on its redevelopment among 60 pages of planning documents on existing neighborhood conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith about 20 acres of prime land in Salt Lake City\u2019s oldest neighborhood,\u201d McClary said in an interview, \u201cI don\u2019t understand how that isn\u2019t strategy number one for the city, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Generational project\u2019 or crickets at City Hall?<\/p>\n

Wharton, who lives in Marmalade, has countered that it is \u201creally premature and a little bit confusing to be holding planning exercises for the LDS Hospital site, especially without the landowner at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wharton said he is in regular communication with Intermountain\u2019s top executives about current and future needs for the hospital, its patients and surrounding neighborhood. He said Intermountain is still \u201cseveral years out\u201d on deciding what to do \u2014 including the possibility of keeping the hospital there in some form. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m as eager as anyone else to find out what its future holds,\u201d Wharton said, \u201cbut that process needs to be initiated by the property owner and guided by the needs of residents, not by speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said in an interview the hospital\u2019s future is one of the three \u201cbig generational projects\u201d \u2014 along with building a new West High School<\/a> and updating the Avenues 38-year-old master plan \u2014 that he is hoping to see through with an additional four years in office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make sure that we have experience on the council as we make these big decisions for District 3 and for the rest of Salt Lake City,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that having experience is critical for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wheels have already started to turn on updating that master plan, for which mapping possible land uses on those Intermountain-owned parcels under and around the hospital is likely to be pivotal.<\/p>\n

Calls for transparency, neighborhood input<\/p>\n

Candidate Liddy Huntsman-Hernandez said she is concerned over \u201clackluster\u201d transparency in recent real estate developments in the city, including the Ivory Homes project on F Street and the city\u2019s recent deal with Smith Entertainment Group<\/a> for a downtown sports, entertainment, culture and convention district.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy concern with the LDS Hospital site is that it could become another juicy opportunity for investors and developers to get ahead of the public process,\u201d Huntsman-Hernandez said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be surprised if some are already eyeing this site.\u201d<\/p>\n

What matters most now, she said, is \u201ctransparency and neighborhood participation\u201d by the people of District 3: \u201cIf and when the time comes, the future of that property should be determined through a transparent, community-driven process that genuinely reflects neighborhood priorities \u2014 not developer agendas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Candidate David Berg, who lives in District 3\u2019s western reaches, said that proposing an elaborate plan for LDS Hospital now \u201cis premature,\u201d although he added that \u201cwe do need to stay on top of what could happen there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reshaping it for green space, housing<\/p>\n

The question is also being framed on the campaign trail in the context of making the city more accommodating to families.<\/a> That\u2019s surfacing as part of larger debates on affordability, park safety and the need for additional multi-bedroom housing to stem what some of the candidates portray as ongoing flight from Utah\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n

McClary is pressing for public subsidies to any redevelopment at the hospital site to create town homes for sale at $550,000 \u2014 a figure Huntsman-Hernandez has called \u201cnaive\u201d given prevailing land and construction costs.<\/p>\n

Candidate Jake Seastrand, who works as a judicial assistant in 3rd District Court, said he applauded McClary for taking the initiative on the hospital site \u2014 but says his opponent\u2019s newly unveiled plan does not go far enough.<\/p>\n

As part of the city\u2019s rewriting of the area\u2019s master plan, Seastrand is calling for substantial tweaks to the hospital site\u2019s underlying zoning, with added requirements to its urban institutional label to tilt it more firmly toward housing and green spaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat way,\u201d said Seastrand, \u201cwhen that redevelopment did come around, we would already have a blueprint ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seastrand said Avenues residents have a well-founded sense of \u201cdensity backlash\u201d after the F Street approval. He is urging more of a \u201cgentle density\u201d approach that emphasizes smaller housing types such as town homes, triplexes and duplexes available for ownership, otherwise referred to as \u201cmissing middle\u201d housing.<\/p>\n

He, like Wharton and Huntsman-Hernandez, is also calling for widespread public input into the new Avenues master plan when it comes to the hospital site to ensure the community\u2019s needs are met. \u201cThat way,\u201d Seastrand said, \u201cthe neighborhood would feel like it actually gave them more stability.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When residents of Salt Lake City\u2019s oldest neighborhood contemplate the prospect of moving LDS Hospital\u2019s massive 120-year-old presence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253,130132,111068],"class_list":["post-234324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-intermountain-lds-hospital","tag-utah-hospital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}