"This is what downtown could look like"—Salt Lake City launches test of a new park in the center of the street 

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• Benjamin Wood
• Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and City Councilmember Ana Valdemoros play badminton at the launch of the Green Loop demonstration project on 200 East on Monday, May 1.

DOWNTOWN—Living in Salt Lake City, Tom Merrill said Monday, is like having "multiple backyards." A member of the Downtown Community Council, Merrill said his family often takes advantage of the open spaces around Gallivan Plaza, Washington Square and the federal courthouse.

But for at least the next six weeks, families like the Merrills can add a new space to that downtown hangout list: the middle of 200 East. That's because the typically more-than-100-feet-wide street is being reduced to a single travel lane in each direction between 400 South and 300 South, swapping hot, high-speed asphalt for nearly 200 trees, a badminton court, an event space and a food truck court.

"I’m a downtown pedestrian and I’m raising two little pedestrians," Merrill said, "and we couldn’t be more excited for something like this to happen."

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• Salt Lake City
• The layout of a pop-up park bringing badminton, food trucks and a beer garden to the center of a downtown street.

Merrill's comments came during the formal launch of the space, designed as a one-block demonstration of what one day could be a 5.5-mile "Green Loop" around downtown Salt Lake City. Long dormant in city plans, the Green Loop effort was rejuvenated by mayor Erin Mendenhall, who cites the expansion of green space and urban forestry downtown as a priority of her administration.

"We want people who live downtown to be able to feel and contribute to the vibrant economic, cultural and community landscape that we love here in Salt Lake City," Mendenhall said. "But we need more public, shared spaces to do that."

Mendenhall remarked on how, during her time as a city councilmember, the city had set funding aside to explore the purchase of downtown parcels for new park space. But while increasing property costs impeded that effort, it highlighted the untapped potential of the city street grid, she said, which is already government-owned and designed with redundant and dangerous space for private vehicle travel.

While the current layout of the Green Loop demonstration is not intended as the final design for the space, it highlights the range of the activities that could be facilitated by strategically reclaiming portions of the streetscape, Mendenhall said. Permanent construction on 200 East, 900 South, 500 West and North/South Temples—the potential route for the full loop—would tie together much of the city's transit and cycling networks and could see up to 10,000 trees and shrubs added to the urban core, helping to clean the air, filter storm water, cool temperatures, slow driving speeds and encourage active transportation.

"This is what downtown could look like. It’s an idea, it's a conversation starter," Mendenhall said. "It could add as much as 60 acres of park and it would tap into these 132-foot-wide, incredible pathways that we already have for cars."

And Nancy Monteith, senior landscape architect for the city, explained that while traditional sidewalk trees struggle to thrive in harsh, urban conditions, the space afforded by the Green Loop would allow specimens to grow to their full potential.

"Trees are by far the best and most cost-effective solution to climate change and the urban heat island," Monteith said. "Every dollar invested in them returns nearly $5 back in benefits."

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• Salt Lake City
• Concept plans for the Green Loop show a 5.5-mile linear park system wrapping around downtown Salt Lake City.

The route for the Green Loop was selected specifically for those streets' width relative to their traffic demands—offering the greatest potential benefit with the least disruption to normal travel habits. During Monday's press conference, drivers showed little trouble navigating the space, calmly passing by while the mayor and other dignitaries addressed the press and, later, while they played a game of 2-on-2 badminton.

Craig Vickers, a resident of the Metro apartments on 200 East, said that he's excited to see a vibrant environment in what is otherwise a "sleepy" downtown outside of the standard bar and entertainment districts.

"Wide streets are nice," he said. "But at the same time, I don’t think that every block needs to be a five-lane thoroughfare."

The Green Loop demonstration is scheduled to run through June 10, with a weekly beer garden on Saturday, local music performances on Wednesday evenings and food trucks each week day at lunch time. Deliveries, ride-share drop-offs and through-traffic are permitted, but parking at the site itself is limited. The Red Line TRAX stops a stone's-throw away at Library Station.

For more information on the Green Loop, click here.