First Step House has filed fresh plans with Salt Lake City to tuck a 50-unit, deeply affordable apartment building into a slim Central City lot. The four-story project would consist entirely of one-bedroom homes reserved for households earning at or below 30 percent of the area median income, with developers eyeing a construction start in late 2026 or early 2027.
The proposal calls for a narrow, four-story building on a 0.64-acre parcel at 273 E. 800 South, bringing the site to a density of about 77.8 units per acre. Plans show 50 one-bedroom units, 20 off-street parking stalls and 14 bicycle parking spaces, with the design squeezing in extra apartments by relocating stairwells and eliminating a conference room and storage areas. The site previously housed an office for the Disabled American Veterans, and the project timeline and many design specifics come from materials submitted to the city, as reported by Building Salt Lake.
Rezoning cleared last year
City records show that First Step House requested a zoning map amendment in 2024 to change the parcel from Institutional to RMF-45. The Salt Lake City Council approved that rezone in April, according to the Salt Lake City Planning Division. The switch allows higher residential density and lower parking requirements, incentives that the nonprofit is leaning on to increase the unit count on the small site.
Plan layout and unit sizes
The layout calls for six units and shared resident spaces on the ground floor, 15 units each on the second and third floors and 14 units on the top floor. Reporting by Building Salt Lake notes that 44 of the apartments come in at about 500 square feet, three units are 510 square feet and three Accessible units are 530 square feet, numbers that help explain the project’s compact footprint.
What 'deeply affordable' means here
Every unit is planned for households earning at or below 30 percent of the area median income, a level Salt Lake City categorizes as deeply affordable. For a single-person household, that threshold is $25,800 under the city’s current table. Salt Lake City’s Housing Stability publishes the full AMI schedule and lays out how affordability levels are calculated.
Process and next steps
The application will go through staff review and public notification before any final sign-offs. With the rezone already in place, project backers say the density and parking-related incentives built into the zoning are likely to carry through to approval. As Building Salt Lake has reported, First Step House initially submitted plans in 2024, and the updated filing shows the nonprofit working to fully leverage those city incentives to add more units.
First Step House's local footprint
First Step House, a Salt Lake City nonprofit, runs residential treatment and supportive housing, including Central City Apartments, and has been expanding its housing portfolio in recent years. The organization’s website details its wraparound services and housing programs, which the developer says will be paired with on-site supports at the planned building, per First Step House
If the project wins approval, it would become one of the relatively few new deeply affordable developments in Central City, adding service-linked homes for very low-income residents. We will track the planning file as it moves through staff review and public hearings later this year.
