Seven-story apartment building will replace former Road Home

SALT LAKE CITY — A seven-story apartment building is set to replace a former downtown Salt Lake City homeless shelter. 

Seven-story apartment coming to old Road Home site

Coming to the former site of the Road Home shelter is a 210-unit apartment complex, which will be called ‘Rio.’

“Building Salt Lake” reports that the state sold the nearly 1.2-acre property to a local developer earlier this year. It comes after the old shelter building was demolished in 2020.

Lots of people, mostly left-wing protesters, wanting to speak about the closing of the Road Home shelter at the #SLC city council meeting.

— Kelli Pierce (@KelliReports) November 13, 2019

Throughout the demolition and bidding process, people who work in the area have called it a welcomed change.

“It would surprise me if you didn’t see some pretty good investment down here in the next couple of years,” says Josh Loftin, who works at the Rio Grande Depot. “It’s nice to not have it quite so chaotic.”

A potential groundbreaking this fall

Developers have indicated the ‘Rio’ will largely be market-based, with around 60 units designated for people earning between 60 to 80% median income.

When looking at the size of the various units, around 25% will be one-bedroom and anywhere from 750 to 950 square feet. Also making up roughly a quarter of all units will be “micro” apartments, which are all smaller than 400 square feet. 

In addition to the 210 apartment units, there will also be 4,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, which will be leasable for commercial or retail space. Another 3,000 square feet are being designated for a leasing office and other tenant services.

The developers are not asking the city for zoning changes, which would have slowed down the timeline of the project. They say if approval from the city comes quickly, groundbreaking for the project could come as soon as this fall.