As Salt Lake's newest boutiquedom, complete with a Crate and Barrel, rises in the ruins of once-funky Sugar House, City Weekly looks for hope for saving the endangered funkiness of Salt Lake's old red-light district, anchored at Second South 600 West.

This warehouse district, which lies in the shadow of Gateway mall, could be the city's next hip shopping and dining district, reports City Weekly's Ted McDonough. Or it could follow in the footsteps of Sugar House and be transformed into what would amount to a Gateway annex, anchored by the likes of Olive Garden and Aeropostale. It's enough to make you nostalgic for the hookers.

Edith Welker, a UofU urban-planning student and a charter member of the failed "Save Sugar House" effort, points to a recent survey of the area that borders the new transit hub:

As cool as Sugar House was, this could be even cooler.

Welker says the west-side warehouses could become home to the same kinds of ever-moving, fiddler crab-like businesses that made Sugar House a destination for hipsters. But the transformation, says, would be short-lived, unless the city protects it as an historic district because “There aren’t any cool developers here.”