Lessons in Affordability from The Aster of Salt Lake City

255 South State Street was a visible failure in Salt Lake City, an abandoned, graffiti-covered concrete skeleton sitting on prime real estate just blocks from City Hall. Today, the 1.1-acre site is home to The Aster, a three-building, mixed-use development that has become the city's flagship affordable housing project and, in 2025, a national finalist for the Urban Land Institute's Terwilliger Center Award for Innovation in Attainable Housing.

This is a case study in what public leadership, land control, and creative stacked finance can accomplish and holds lessons for cities grappling with a downtown housing crunch.

Danny Walz, director of Salt Lake City's Redevelopment Agency, called The Aster project "a story of redemption.” The structure once occupied the site had been an emblem of stalled development for the better part of a decade. Mayor Erin Mendenhall recalled the property being discussed at City Hall for roughly ten years across her different roles there. The turning point came when the RDA, which owned the land, decided to develop it. In 2018, the agency ran a competitive public Request for Qualifications process and selected Chicago-based Brinshore Development to build affordable housing on the site, with KTGY Architecture + Planning designing the project and Wadman Corporation building it.

 Building The Aster 

The Aster is two mixed-use towers,  one rising eight stories, the other twelve, holding 190 apartments ranging from studios all the way up to four-bedroom units; it is a family-friendly mix for a downtown development. At street level, roughly 18,000 square feet of commercial space grounds the block along State Street.

Between the towers runs a mid-block pedestrian walkway connecting State Street to Floral Street behind it. The creates gathering space and new access points through the heart of downtown. The third building: the Cramer House is a roughly 2,000-square-foot brick structure originally built as a flower shop in 1890. The project team restored it, and it was slated to become home to a new bar concept from the owners of a favorite local spot, the Water Witch.

Genuine Affordability 

Of the 190 units, 168 are deed-restricted for households earning between 20 and 80 percent of the area median income, and more than half of those are reserved for households at or below 50 percent AMI. Broken down further, 95 units serve residents earning 20–50 percent of AMI, while 73 serve those in the 51–80 percent category. That depth of affordability, in a brand-new building, in the middle of downtown, with units large enough for families, is what led Mayor Mendenhall to describe the project as unlike anything else in the city, county, or state.

Creating Financing 

The Aster's stack was intricate, drawing on roughly a dozen funding streams. The RDA contributed $14.5 million in financial assistance. Layered on top were 4 percent and 9 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credits through the Utah Housing Corporation, tax-exempt bonds, the Olene Walker Housing Loan Fund, state housing tax credits, support from Salt Lake City's Division of Housing Stability, and funding from Salt Lake County.

Mayor Mendenhall summed up the collaborative effort as "modern-day barn raising", the point being neither the private market nor any single public entity could have delivered the project alone. The public sector's willingness to contribute land, subsidy, and staying power over many years is precisely what made affordability achievable on a high-value site.

Modern Barn Raising Outside of Salt Lake 

The Aster bundles best practices into a single project: public land ownership lever, competitive developer selection process, mixed-income and family-sized units, ground-floor retail, and historic preservation folded into new construction. Two years after opening, The Aster was named one of just eight finalists nationwide for ULI's 2025 Terwilliger Center Award, which honors replicable, innovative approaches to attainable housing.

The posture and financing stacking are worth replicating in other cities. Salt Lake City spent a decade turning its most notorious abandoned building into its proudest housing achievement. The blueprint is ready for following. Learn how DCH follows these best practices and principles on the Armonia Case Study. 

Sources: Salt Lake City Community Reinvestment Agency's Aster case study and public reporting from Salt Lake City, the SLC RDA/CRA, KSL, and Salt Lake Magazine.