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SALT LAKE CITY — One of Salt Lake City’s oldest parks is about to get a major makeover.
Final design planning for the first phase of a project to enhance Pioneer Park is now underway, setting up construction that should begin in mid-2024, says Katherine Maus, a planner for Salt Lake City’s public lands department. This is where planners put the last touches on what all the amenities will look like among the items that were included in a vision plan published last year.
The plan is to work on the northern end of the park first, constructing a new playground, plaza, pavilion, ranger station, “shade lawn,” mist fountain and natural habitat area before moving on to add other proposed items. Other items, like a stage for the pavilion, an improved dog park, a new basketball court, pickleball courts and more natural areas, are expected to be added at a later time.
The department is also working with the Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance to figure out how to operate the Downtown Farmers Market around the construction next year.
“I think folks can anticipate some potential impacts due to construction to the summer and fall of 2024,” she said. “Part of the reason why we’re developing the northern portion first is so that we have at least a portion of the park open to accommodate the farmers market during that building season.”
Looking to improve a city icon
Salt Lake leaders began focusing on improvements to the nearly 10-acre Pioneer Park in 2019, setting aside $3.4 million, at the time, for improvements. It’s considered an important city park because downtown Salt Lake City is still on pace to double in population by 2025, as more residential skyscrapers are completed, and the city has a goal of offering enough green space for residents.
Also in 2019, Salt Lake City Public Lands completed a report that found downtown had about 2.8 acres of green space per 1,000 people, as compared to the citywide average of 3.5 acres per 1,000 people. The downtown’s figure continues to drop as its population grows and as the space to build new parks becomes increasingly unavailable.
The site’s human importance dates back thousands of years, serving as a gathering place for Native American tribes before pioneer settlers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, city planners wrote in a cultural landscape report for the project. When Mormon pioneers arrived, they built a massive fort in the area where the park exists today.
In fact, it’s believed that the first pioneer campfire was lit about a block north of the park’s boundary today, the report notes. The decision was also made in August 1847 to build the first homes on the east side of modern-day Pioneer Park, using sun-dried adobe bricks. The area was eventually designated as a place for both rest and play in the 1890s, and then into an official city park in 1898, as the city grew.
“By most accounts, the physical appearance of the park was likened to a swamp in a vacant lot,” the report notes. “Improvements to the neighborhood surrounding the park were slow, but the city did fund projects to improve the physical environment of the park and the reputation of the area.”
Trees, shrubbery and lawns were approved by the City Council in 1901 and it was used for “planned and spontaneous” gatherings, as well, city planners wrote. However, it struggled with “negative public sentiment” almost immediately, lagging behind Liberty Park in popularity because of “camping for recent emigrants and wayward children,” the report states.
City leaders did continue to put funding into the park, but there were also pressures to give it up as the surrounding area became more industrial. Then Salt Lake City Mayor Earl Glade declined offers of up to $400,000 to sell the land for development in 1948, which equates to a little more than $5 million in today’s money.
By the 1950s, it had become a popular spot again, especially in the summer, as improvements to the park were made again. Families came to play sports, watch brass band concerts or hold picnics. There was even a farmers market that predates the current Downtown Farmers Market, which was established in 1992.
The park landed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1970s, too.
Today, there’s a playground, a tennis court, a basketball court, a dog park and plenty of open space, but interest in the park fell again over time — aside from the current farmers market, which now brings in an average of about 14,000 visitors every Saturday from spring to fall, according to Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance.
These trends — and the desire for downtown green space — led to more conversations on how to make Pioneer Park a bigger destination at times when the market isn’t set up.
A plan to improve Pioneer Park
Salt Lake City Public Lands published a park vision plan in early 2022, calling for all sorts of improvements. Maus adds that there will also be “increased capacity” for the Downtown Farmers’ Market once the project is built out, too.
The plan hasn’t changed much since then, although there’s much more funding to work with. The Salt Lake City Council approved a sales tax bond late last year, which set aside $10 million for improvements to Pioneer Park to add to the initial funding.
“The amount that they allocated is definitely enough to make a substantial impact and deliver much of the vision plan that the community wants to see at Pioneer Park,” she said. “We’re very excited — and hopeful — that all of Phase I can be accomplished with the sales tax bond funding.”
At least one more phase of construction will be set sometime after the first phase is complete. Maus said the city is looking into “external funding opportunities” for these. A map published by the city lists the new basketball and pickleball courts, and stage, as projects that will be funded by an “outside source.”
Planners say they hope these adjustments will help turn Pioneer Park around again. They view it as a place that can bring in daily recreation and special events, and serve as a community gathering space.
“Ensuring that we can plan for and deliver usable spaces for a number of things … is, honestly, very critical to the development and perception of our city,” Maus said. “We’re really excited to be able to take advantage of this opportunity.”
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