Craig's Crater is here to stay
What could have been . . .Salt Lake City's would-be tough guy, planning chief Frank Gray, has knuckled under to developer Craig "Cratermaker" Mecham.
In the last episode, the city demanded Mecham fill his four-acre cavity in the heart of Sugar House. The hole, and the devastation to Sugar House's small-but-thriving business district, was necessary, if you remember, to bring in a Crate & Barrel. Without pseudo-hip home furnishings, city leaders agreed, Salt Lake could never take its place among world-class burgs like Rancho Cucamonga.
Because Mecham failed to pull his deal together before the economy tanked, Sugar House is stuck with the Craig's Crater indefinitely. It would be cruel-and-unusual punishment, the city has decided, to make Mecham fill it back up.
Not that city's letting Mecham off the hook. Gray told the City Council he wants a building plan on his desk by the new year, dammit! And if Mecham doesn't begin work by next summer — well, well, something bad's gonna happen.
Gray then uttered one of the most pathetic statements ever to come out of a bureaucrat's mouth:
They have to show real, honest progress.
1 Comments:
"They have to show real, honest progress," or I'm going to write a stern letter and then go and have a good cry. Sheesh! This sounds like the Congressional Dems when faced with one of King George's tantrums. "We really really mean it this time, we're going to hold our breath..." I'm sick of these weasels and losers rolling over for every greedy developer. Sugarhouse looks like a bomb went off, and the Cottonwood Maul looks like Yucca Flats. It's too bad these guys never ready Edward Abbey, who said that "uncontrolled growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." Now, with the giant skyscraper planned for Sandy so Mayor Dolan can say "Mine is bigger than yours!", this place is going to look just like L.A. What am I saying, it already does!
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