Salt Lake City’s next great district is officially rising
- Jake Nicholas
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
The Power District has officially entered its building era, as vertical construction began in late 2025 on one of the most ambitious urban transformations in the American West — a 100-acre mixed-use district rising along Salt Lake City’s Jordan River designed around walkability, connectivity, and long-term growth.
The first major structure now underway is the 10-story, 300,000-square-foot Rocky Mountain Power headquarters, marking the moment Salt Lake City’s downtown footprint began expanding west. Scheduled for completion in 2027, the all-electric campus serves as the opening phase of a multi-billion-dollar master plan that will introduce housing, jobs, hospitality, retail, and entertainment into a once-underutilized corridor near the Utah State Fairpark, positioned between downtown and Salt Lake City International Airport.
From its earliest design stages, the Power District has been structured around the Jordan River. Rather than treating the river as an edge condition, the master plan places it at the center of the district — transforming the corridor into a continuous public spine of trails, green space, pedestrian bridges, waterfront plazas, and active riverwalk programming.
The goal is a fully walkable urban environment where housing, workplaces, recreation, and entertainment are connected by landscape and movement, helping reconnect Salt Lake City’s westside with the rest of the city while redefining how residents interact with the river.
This river-anchored framework also sets the stage for one of the project’s most significant potential catalysts — Major League Baseball. The Power District has been identified as the preferred location for a future MLB stadium through the Big League Utah initiative, with development teams working to make the site shovel-ready by late 2026 as the league evaluates expansion timing. If realized, the ballpark would rise directly along the Jordan River within a broader sports and entertainment district, surrounded by housing, hotels, dining, and year-round public activity designed to activate the riverfront and extend downtown westward.
Beyond baseball, the long-range vision is expansive. Full buildout plans call for thousands of residential units, major employment centers, hospitality, retail, and public space — all tied together by a continuous riverfront network and a highly walkable urban framework. Positioned between downtown and the airport, the district is being shaped as a new gateway to Utah’s capital, blending infrastructure, public realm design, and economic development into a cohesive new neighborhood.
With construction now underway, the first buildings rising, and the Jordan River vision beginning to take physical form, the Power District is moving from planning into reality — positioning Salt Lake City’s westside for a generational transformation centered on walkability, connectivity, and the river as the heart of the city’s next chapter.
