Salt Lake City leaders and some family members of people depicted on the “Fleet Block” wall gather outside of the property Wednesday afternoon. The facility is the site of a large redevelopment project in the city. (Carter Williams, KSL.com)
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SALT LAKE CITY — The large murals plastered on the sides of Salt Lake City’s abandoned “Fleet Block” mean quite a lot to Gina Thayne.
One of the murals depicts her nephew, Dillon Taylor, who was only 20 years old when he was shot and killed by police after quickly lifting his shirt and taking his hands out of his waistband, as officers responded to a report of a man with a possible gun in 2014. Though no weapon was found on Taylor, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill later determined the shooting to be legally justified based on what officers reasonably believed what was about to happen.
Eight years later, the mural rekindles bright memories of Taylor’s life, and the final moments of it, Thayne says. It’s one of several other large murals around the block, which were first designed in 2020 amid the social injustice protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota. The entire block became a place for community expression, featuring people who died from police shootings in Utah and across the country over the past few years.
“Regardless of who they were and what happened, someone misses them and someone loves them,” she said, standing on the block near her late nephew’s mural on a cold, snowy Wednesday afternoon.
“People have said, ‘Well, you can go to the graveyard, you see your loved ones and remember them there.’ But the thing is — when you go to the graveyard, you see the sorrow and the sadness, and the tragedy that brought them onto this wall,” she adds. “I understand that our tragedies are not everyone’s tragedies, but they are kind of because we are a community. And when we come here, this is a healing spot for families. … We see their smiles and we see their spirit here. “
The mural may not last forever, though. Salt Lake City officials are in the process of rezoning the space that housed its vehicle fleet up until 2010. The council started to rezone the block in 2019; however, the new use in 2020 has reshaped the conversation moving forward. City officials say the conversation will include more public input on how the block should be redeveloped.
At the same time, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and other city leaders on Wednesday unveiled a pair of signs outside of the complex that highlight the next steps forward, and how residents can be involved in the process.
- The city council will likely vote to rezone the property in the near future. The plan calls for Form-Based Urban Neighborhood 3 rezone, which would pave the way for a wide variety of uses, including residential, retail or office space, and some “light industrial activities.”
- City officials will continue a community vision plan in spring 2023, which will help guide the types of projects on the block.
- From there, the city will identify possible developers to work with. Once that’s done, project designing and financing will begin, followed by project construction and completion. The timetable for these remaining steps is less clear at the moment.
“This is a step of transparency about the development process (and) the healing process of what may happen on this block, and, most of all, an invitation for the community to help shape this process as they have so far,” the mayor said.
Families of those depicted on the wall have been kept in the loop since the rezoning discussions rekindled in late 2020.
The families want to keep the murals but they also want to make sure the block is redeveloped in a way that expands on the block’s ability to heal, Thayne said.
“We want the community to be a part of it,” she said. “We want this to be a good space, where people of minority, of color, people who are down on their luck, can come and feel safe and get that healing feeling that we get from this space.”
The future of ‘Fleet Block’
That’s essentially what city leaders also have in mind with the block, which is why Blake Thomas, director of the Salt Lake City Department of Community and Neighborhoods, a city department that is helping spearhead the project, agrees with what Thayne and other family members have to say about how the block is reshaped.
City officials are targeting development ideas that address various forms of inequality, such as affordable housing or development that is “more accessible to an inclusive group of partners,” one city document stated. Thomas said there’s also a desire for more walkable blocks along with a green space planned for the block; a recently passed general obligation bond includes $6 million toward a new park on the block.
“We want this block to be a place of healing. We also want it to be a case study of equitable development,” he told KSL.com shortly after the new signs went up. “We hope to capture as many of those community benefits as possible within this block.”
Another component of the project is making sure it fits with an area that has completely changed over the past decade.
It can be a place where people live affordably, a place that will foster creativity, a center of diversity and inclusion, a hub for growing local minority-owned businesses (and) a place for us to engage and serve our community.
–Salt Lake City Councilman Darin Mano
Salt Lake City Councilman Darin Mano, whose district includes the block, said he wants the block to connect with all the new development in and around the Central 9th neighborhood and Granary District, which houses new businesses, nonprofit organizations, restaurants, bars and housing, while also delivering on much-desired neighborhood needs.
“It can be a place where people live affordably, a place that will foster creativity, a center of diversity and inclusion, a hub for local growing minority-owned businesses (and) a place for us to engage and serve our community,” he said.
Where the current murals land in all of the plans is less clear. A document presented to the city council last month offered the idea of just keeping one mural.
Officials tapped the Salt Lake City Arts Council to participate in redevelopment discussions, so they can “help imagine” public art that can accompany the new open space, Mendenhall explains. She said that the art will likely aim to “honor the families’ feelings” that they’ve expressed to city leaders through a letter.
Thomas contends that there are a “variety of means” that will be considered when it comes to memorials, which will be sorted in the coming months.
All of the building, open space and art ideas, combined, will be given to developers for them to consider in their development proposals. That’s when a more concrete plan for the block will emerge.
“Hopefully, we’ll have lots of ideas that the city and community can consider,” Mendenhall said, “and that will be a publicly-run process as it typically would.”
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Carter Williams is an award-winning reporter who covers general news, outdoors, history and sports for KSL.com. He previously worked for the Deseret News. He is a Utah transplant by the way of Rochester, New York.
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