With strong economic benchmarks already in place, the estimated $5 billion in projects scheduled over the next five years in the forty-block central business district will cement Salt Lake City’s place as the undisputed hottest city in the United States, according to enthusiastic reports by city and state officials as well as key project developers.

In a jam-packed 90-minute session, Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, and others delivered a positive “state of the downtown” assessment in a forum sponsored by the Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance and Fidelity Investments. The meeting included a progress report on the City Creek Center, Gateway’s expansion, and the Cultural District.

Despite the ongoing, significant economic disruption and dislocation in the district caused by new construction, the central business district still managed to generate record levels in employment, retail sales, wages, and housing and hotel occupancy in 2007, according to James Wood of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Utah. Wood coordinates a study every three years measuring key benchmarks for the city’s central business district.

Among the highlights:

* Nearly 65,000 people work in the central business district with wages totaling $2.36 billion. Given the fact that nearly 9,000 of those work in the relatively lower-paying jobs of restaurant and retail industries, the average annual earnings still topped $36,000.

* Although office space growth is still sluggish — down from 13.3 million square feet in 2001 to 12.7 million in 2007 — demand for Class A office space, going at a still remarkably reasonable rate of $25.99 per square foot, is intensively competitive. The vacancy rate for such space is less than two percent.

* Even with the demolition of the twin malls downtown, retail sales jumped to a record $555.1 million in 2007, easily eclipsing the 1996 figure of $550 million, when adjusted for inflation. And, restaurants powered the record surge, accounting for nearly half of the total. Restaurant sales — $271 million in 2007 — have increased more than two and a half-times since 2000, when they were $108 million or just 37 percent of all downtown retail sales.

* With a current population of 7,500 in the central business district, there is strong evidence that the area will be able to easily sustain the current housing boom as well as add successfully 2,500 to 3,000 new housing units. Wood indicated that a metropolitan market of Salt Lake City’s size could easily handle as many as 13,000 people living in the central business district. Unlike the last downtown condominium boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the current bulge is well supported by eonomically favorable demographic and market dynamics. In 2008 alone, 900 new or renovated units will be added in and around the district, increasing the total inventory by 45 percent.

* Prices for new units are going between $300 and $350 per square foot while older, renovated units are selling for between $225 and $250 per square foot.

* Hotel occupancy at 75 percent was the highest in ten years. And, conventions headquartered at the Salt Palace generated more than 302,000 room nights and retail spending of $108 million.

Once the City Creek Center is completed in 2011 or early 2012, the business district will have 3 million square feet of retail space. Wisely aware of the need to establish a synergistic balance with the currently thriving Gateway Center, City Creek Center developers have opted to replace the old 1.2 million square feet of retail space in the twin malls with 731,500 square feet of new space. The main retail anchors will be Nordstrom’s and Macy’s.

The first residential tower should be ready for occupancy in the first quarter of 2010 with the other towers to follow a year later. Demolition is now complete at the site of the old malls with the exception of the ZCMI food court, which is scheduled to close later this year.

Among the most positive mentions were plans adding residential units, specialty shops, and art gallery space along the now-forlorn Regent Street, between the City Creek Center and Gallivan Plaza. The price tag could top $700 million for the two-block renovation project.

At Gateway, construction on the fifth tower for office space is complete and the building is leased fully. Construction on the sixth tower will begin this summer as will construction for a 128-room, limited service Hyatt Place Hotel.

Hundreds of attendees also heard progress reports on the new skyscraper at 222 South Main Street as well as preliminary design approaches for the cultural district. Indeed, the presentations — particularly the video offered by developers of the City Creek Center — justifiably underscored the enthusiasm for the city’s anticipated period of what appears to be spectacular growth for an urban district that may well become the definitive case for effective urban revitalization.