Hines has acquired South Temple Tower, a historic office building in downtown Salt Lake City, with plans to convert it into a luxury multifamily tower. This will be the international real estate firm’s first office-to-residential conversion.
With construction expected to begin in the first quarter of 2023, Hines will strip the 217,000-square-foot office building to its core and shell and repurpose the structure to create the multifamily floor plan. According to the firm, the building met the right requirements needed for conversion, including walkability, natural light, shape, potential number of units, and overall floor plan.
The 24-story multifamily tower, designed by Hickock Cole, will feature 255 studio, one-, and two-bedroom units with high-quality finishes and a wealth of amenities. Hines will incorporate its environmental, social, and governance strategies into the adaptive-reuse project, which will reduce embodied carbon by limiting new construction materials, including concrete production, which can be one of the largest emitters of embodied carbon across the industry, according to the firm. The building will also include more efficient mechanical systems, which Hines expects will lower the operational carbon emissions over its life cycle.
“Downtown Salt Lake City is experiencing immense growth, with Utah having the second-highest population growth in the country over the last decade, and there is an undersupply of housing,” said Dusty Harris, senior managing director of Hines. “As a local resident, I’ve watched the office market shift and the residential market pick up speed since the dawn of the pandemic. Aligning with the company’s core values, Hines is stepping in to fill a need among the city’s residents, by delivering a sustainable high-rise product that will be new and highly attractive for this growing market.”
South Temple Tower, which is close to downtown amenities and employers, Salt Lake Temple, and the light rail, offers views of the city skyline, the Capitol, and the Wasatch Range.
