Salt Lake City has agreed to help provide millions of dollars in tax money for an underground parking garage as part a massive development of apartment towers, hotels and and office space on downtown’s Block 67, just west of the Salt Palace Convention Center.
And the prospect of that public cash has also been a key factor in delicate negotiations aimed at ensuring that what’s left of an old ethnic neighborhood known as Japantown gets a future place in the project’s design.
The initial idea, city officials say, was to funnel up to $15 million in state transportation money through Salt Lake County to developers at The Ritchie Group.