95 State at City Creek is a testament to the creativity and expertise of the entire project team. In this deep-dive on the 25-story tower in Salt Lake City’s financial district, Utah Construction & Design Magazine spoke with the owner, contractor, and SOM’s Michael Duncan, Steve Sobel, Sean Ragasa, and Peter Lee about completing this ambitious project—sited only 1.5 miles from the Wasatch Fault—at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The typologically complex project integrates two Latter Day Saints (LDS) Meetinghouses, a commercial office tower, retail spaces, and a pedestrian tunnel that links directly to the City Creek shopping center. The design reconciles modern commercial and ecclesiastic architectural languages, and even incorporates the remnants of a historic structure, the 1853 Great Salt Lake Social Hall, which is memorialized at the entrance to the pedestrian tunnel.
“We talked about how [the building] captured the mountains behind it,” explains Sobel. “It’s a different type of glazing in terms of color. The curved glass is one aspect as the building curves on the east and west façades to capture views in a 360-degree manner—they are quite spectacular. The ‘wow’ factor is the overall composition and beautiful form that sit nicely in the city scale.”
Check out the article to learn more about 95 State Street at City Creek—from its unique program (with two full-size chapels) to its sustainability aspirations, not to mention the engineering behind “one of the most leading-edge seismic-resistant buildings in the world.” As Sobel notes, “It was a very collaborative process… the best projects are the ones that everyone enjoys. In the end, everyone is super excited that we delivered what we hand in our mind’s eye from the beginning.”