North Temple is changing, and A/E/C teams helping to usher in this transformation are creating noteworthy projects that are setting up an underserved area for a bright future.

By Taylor Larsen

Design on The Gauge began before the pandemic—one of the last projects that Architecture Belgique did before utilizing 3D modeling, said Balls, Sr. Associate & Project Manager. But less complex software didn’t mean a softer outlook from city officials on code enforcement for maximum building façade length. The original design that consisted of two larger building masses surrounded by smaller ones—all within one continuous building—would need changing. 

Design shifted to create two separate buildings that incorporated skybridge walkways and revamped circulation and egress stairs.

Long before construction reached the skybridges, Timothy said she and the field team, led by Pentalon Superintendent Mike Pollard, would need to do some digging. The construction team expected to find the three wells listed in Utah’s Division of Water Rights Well Logs, capping and abandoning them prior to excavation. More digging uncovered the start of the site’s undocumented history—World War II-era homes that Timothy said were seemingly demolished and covered to make way for new development. 

Those weren’t the only buried treasures, as excavators hit wells that never made it into the logs. As dewatering began, Timothy detailed how the nearby canal and high groundwater had seemingly worked in tandem to frustrate future construction by morphing the subsurface, leaving voids and garbage piles over the years as they meandered along uncharted paths. The previously balanced site required an extensive earthwork package that turned the site into a port exporting contaminated soils and importing structural fill.

With site conditions seemingly as fluid as the groundwater below, on-site electricity delivered another challenge. Old transformers from Diamond Lil’s needed removing, while transformers and cabinets powering the nearby TRAX station, The Gauge, and SPARK Apartments across Cornell Street needed relocating—made more difficult as the two multifamily projects were under construction simultaneously. 

The project team ensured these challenges wouldn’t lead to dead ends. Balls said design returned to the drawing board, relocating an entire unit stack to the northwest corner of the property to make room at grade for relocated electrical equipment.

The Pentalon team followed suit, with Timothy praising Pollard as “the backbone of the project.” He worked closely with the entire team to keep the project aligned, schedules on track, and ensure The Gauge was built to the highest standards. Construction was resequenced to start with north building, made difficult because all of the main feeds—water, fire sprinkler, power, and fiber—came into the south building.

Detours and all, the project team delivered the north building four months ahead of schedule; construction finished on the south building a few weeks before the contract date; and Balls said the reconfigured unit mix contained the originally planned 296 unit count—all with the same design intent.

“Through coordination and great partnerships with the design team, GC, and trade partners, we were successful,” said Timothy.

Amidst the challenges, the final product created a feeling of wonder that comes from arrival at a final destination—home. .

Stepping into the lobby is akin to stepping into a historic train station. Checkerboard tile floors, transom archways, and other features from interior designers at ESG Architecture & Design set a charming ambiance. Just steps away, the mailroom continues the theme, with storefront glazing combining with the wood tones of the mailbox frames to provide tactile warmth.

Collaborative efforts amidst the challenges delivered beauty and operational excellence throughout and especially in these ground floor common areas. The design incorporated seven moment frames to work within the non-stackable common area that made for a competition for space for MEP systems, and Timothy noted how interior construction succeeded in hiding steel beams and columns for a luxurious clubroom.

One of those columns required a re-think of the space’s fireplace feature. Instead of the flush original design, the fireplace insets into the mantle, wrapped in hand-glazed, kiln-fired “Bison Brick” tiles for an elevated feature that matches the regal nature of the room’s custom cabinetry, artwork, billiards table, and more.

Stepping into the outdoor courtyard, one quickly forgets the North Temple traffic on the other side of the building. The apartment wrap acts as a privacy screen, giving a quiet serenity for those relaxing by the pool. 

But something is different about this pool—it is visually clear of railings. 

“The building itself becomes the security perimeter,” Balls said. The intentional choice to leave out patios and other instant-access features helped to deliver a more open and inviting outdoor commons. With plenty of landscaping, cabanas, a sitting lounge with TV and fireplace, and more, the courtyard is a ready-made oasis.

As we journeyed up the elevator, Timothy and Balls detailed many elevated features within the residences—beefier headers and baseboards; windows ranging from 6’ x 6’ at their smallest and floor-to-ceiling at their tallest; two-inch-thick quartz countertops; and plenty of built-in storage.

“This is probably one of the most efficient buildings we’ve done in quite a while,” said Balls. “There is not one bit of unused space in the building.”

Easier in design than constructability, Timothy laughed, saying, “It made it tight for us, and we were using every nook and cranny to build.” Even with the complexity, she noted how the project delivers a degree of longevity by creating such efficient, lovely, and livable units for 296 households to enjoy.

Even through two redesigns, Balls said architects looked to “mind the gap” and envision how the project would fit in the area as it developed further. As part of the city’s desire for a gateway of sorts from the airport, design would incorporate durable materials on street-facing façades for a visually accessible and eye-catching architecture. 

“To create a more human scale, we wanted to develop an approach that makes it look like a new building was built around smaller, existing buildings,” Balls said

Design called for a historic-feeling gray-brick warehouse, with generous use of thin brick and custom cast stone as its main cladding. Glazing—especially prominent in gorgeous curtain wall that extends to the top floor in the southwest and southeast corners—and more modern architectural elements and materials then surround the larger massing, where the expanded materiality and varied massing create the desired impression of smaller buildings in two key ways. Box frame windows, with heads and sills built utilizing a combination of New Cast Stone, soldier course brick, or Hardie board trim, act as role players that further define the varied deck sizes as designers shuffled units to create smaller massings by grouping unit types together.

“Our warehouse-style brick buildings are created by grouping lots of studio units together,” said Balls. The absence of outdoor decks in the studio units benefited the design by turning that grouping into its own identifiable mass, one of many examples that he and Timothy mentioned that give each façade its own character and style. Better yet, Balls said, is a more elevated, townhome-type feature that helped to “dress up” the façade along Cornell Street. “I love our covered porches on the street-facing façade of the north building; you don't often see this with apartments.”

Balls praised Timothy, Pollard, and the Pentalon team for engaging trade partners in solutions-first construction, saying, “I don't think I ever received and RFI with the statement "Please Advise" throughout the entire course of construction.”

“I love our covered porches on the street-facing façade of the

north building; you don’t often see this with apartments.”

— Eric Balls

Timothy recounted how, as construction was wrapping up, she walked across North Temple to admire the building and finished details on advice she received years before: take a step back during construction and view the project from different perspectives. 

She snapped some photos and sent them over to Balls with a side-by-side comparison to the early renderings. “The building looked exactly like the original renderings,” she said. 

Delivering The Gauge took years—changing history takes time, after all. The track gauge between delivered projects and fulfilling the city’s design intent for North Temple continues to narrow, connecting a neighborhood renaissance with an ever-evolving Salt Lake.