Representatives from the Seven Canyons Trust and the Urban Land Institute Utah met with South Salt Lake officials on Jan. 28 to present a plan to improve the Mill Creek corridor, specifically focusing on the gap between 200 East and 200 West.

"Our goal is to bring back 21 miles of buried creeks and 87 miles of impaired waterways whenever possible," said Seven Canyons Trust Executive Director Ronnie Pessetto, of the organization’s overarching goal.

The Seven Canyons Trust is “a nonprofit working to uncover and restore the buried and impaired creeks in the Salt Lake Valley,” according to its website.

The proposed project would transform the area in South Salt Lake from a series of disjointed industrial zones and hidden waterways into a thriving community asset, Pessetto said. 

Seven Canyons Trust previously worked on the Three Creeks Confluence in Salt Lake City, where a parking lot was reshaped into a public space bringing together three creeks before they join the Jordan River.

For South Salt Lake, the vision is similar but tailored to the unique challenges of the Mill Creek landscape, Pessetto said. "To truly bring Mill Creek to life, we need a unified approach that weaves together things like land use, zoning, environmental restoration and innovative design in ways that everyone can really stand behind." 

To help develop this plan, the city partnered with the Urban Land Institute Utah to conduct a technical assistance panel. This process involved bringing in experts to spend two full days surveying the area and interviewing more than 40 stakeholders to understand the challenges and opportunities.

"Serving on a technical assistance panel is [a] significant commitment," said ULI Utah Executive Director Kristen Cordova. "We spent more time, more time than I can even tell you trying to prepare for this."

The panel identified several key goals, including improving access to the creek—which is currently hidden under State Street and behind parking lots—and improving east-west connectivity within the community.

"The creek provides an opportunity to improve that connectivity," Gretchen Milliken, an architect and urban planner serving on the panel, said. "This could spur on the kind of development that can give back to the community."

While some sections of the creek, particularly near State Street, face challenges regarding private property ownership, the city plans to focus initially on publicly owned property as a "low-hanging fruit" for restoration, Department of Neighborhoods Director Sharen Hauri told the city council.

"We can tackle publicly owned property for right now," she said. "That's going to be the easy win."

The project, which is expected to take several years, could be financed through various grants and other things such as creating a Public Infrastructure District and forming a community reinvestment area.

The next step is to secure some grant funding for design work and for a project feasibility study, something Seven Canyons Trust has committed to help the city with.

Working with Seven Canyons Trust and the technical assistance panel has motivated city staff to pursue this project and clean up the water way, Hauri said.

"This has really spurred us back into action," she said. "Luckily, we have people who really care and are working on it."