Renovation begins for deeply affordable housing units in Salt Lake City

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Officials with Housing Connect, Salt Lake County’s housing authority, broke ground Friday on a project to renovate 299 units of deeply affordable housing in Salt Lake City.

The project consists of renovating two public housing buildings, New City Plaza and County High Rise, at 1966 South 200 East. It’s the largest of Housing Connects recent efforts to maintain the number of affordable units in Salt Lake County.

“It’s really important that we are able to keep these units, these affordable units, because there are not many units on the market that serve extremely low-income households,” said Janice Kimball, CEO of Housing Connect.

Kimball said public housing units across the country can be old and outdated. She said there’s often not enough government funding to maintain such units and they can eventually be lost to demolition.

“What happens is you don’t have enough money to make the repairs that you need and at some point you’re not able to keep the building safe,” she said.

Until recently, City Plaza and County High Rise were managed separately by Housing Connect and the Housing Authority of Salt Lake City. As part of the renovation, Housing Connect will now own and manage them as one property.

Each unit will be renovated and include a new layout, cabinets, appliances, carpet, paint, and wiring for broadband internet. The rehabilitation will also provide health and safety updates, including generators and access systems and common area modernization.

The renovation will be done in stages. About a quarter of residents have been moved to different housing so work can begin on empty units.

Once those are finished, a certain number of residents will move into the new units and the process will repeat itself.

Officials expect the project to take a little less than two years.