Lowe Property Group JV Begins $144M Salt Lake City Project
Located in the Post District downtown, the mixed-use Post House is scheduled for completion in 2023.
Post House. Image courtesy of MVE + Partners
Construction on Post House, a 488,754-square-foot, mixed-use pedestrian friendly development with more than 500 units of multifamily housing in Salt Lake City’s downtown Post District, has begun. The first residential units and 22,405 square feet of retail are expected to be ready in spring 2022 and the entire $144 million project is expected to be completed a year later.
Designed by MVE + Partners, a leading architecture, planning, interiors and graphic design firm, the project is being developed by a partnership of Lowe Property Group, BCG Holdings and Q Factor. Bridge Investment Group is the primary capital partner for Post House, located on the complete block from 500 South to 600 South and from 300 West to 400 West. Also working on the development is landscape architect firms Loft Six Four and Wenk and Associates and McNeil Engineering.
There will be five new buildings, including the Post House Apartments which will have 461,921 square feet of rentable space and offer 580 units ranging from 385-square-foot studios to 2,030-square-foot lofts. The apartment community will feature private outdoor spaces including four rooftop decks with fire pits, an outdoor bar and lounge, seating, barbecue grills and views including the greater Salt Lake Valley and Wasatch Mountain range. The development will include two private outdoor courtyards with indoor and outdoor pools. A 5,604-square-foot fitness center will be available for residential and commercial tenants. New development will include Post House Market, a 22,000-square-foot multi-tenant market hall.
The new buildings will be interwoven with existing adaptive-reuse structures that reflect the area’s historic industrial nature. The most notable of the existing buildings is the Newspaper Agency Corp. Building. The project is being designed to provide a social hub for area residents and will include restaurants, cafes, shops, open green space and 52,000 square feet of plaza space lined with Woonerf-style living streets that put emphasis on pedestrians rather than cars.
Pieter Berger, senior associate partner at MVE, said in a prepared statement the firm is designing the project to be a self-sustaining urban environment that will be a model for revitalization of Salt Lake City’s larger city blocks. He noted the development will offer a live-work-play environment that emphasizes pedestrians and amenities that can be shared by urban residents, commercial tenants and visitors.
Alex Lowe, principal with Lowe Property Group, noted in prepared remarks his firm and Bridge Investment Group are both locally-based companies. Among Lowe Property Group’s holdings in the Salt Lake City area is City Garden, a 61-unit property in the Ogden/Clearfield submarket, acquired in 2018 for $8.2 million.
Market Performance
Post House isn’t the only project being developed in the Salt Lake City area where the population is increasing along with at least 34,700 new jobs added within 12 to 18 months, many driven by growth in the tech sector. Several other large mixed-use projects are underway or planned for the downtown area, including The Exchange, a two-building development on the site of the former Barnes Bank building and Salt Lake Roasting Co.
In March, Berkadia secured $39.5 million in construction financing for Rockworth Cos. to develop North Union Apartments, a 223-unit multifamily community in nearby Midvale, Utah. That 252,897-square-foot project will include 7,500 square feet of retail. Infrastructure upgrades planned for the region include the first phase of a new $3.6 billion airport and $450 million in improvements to Interstate 15.
