Switchpoint Coffee at 2080 W. North Temple is trading lattes for lumber: the building will be razed later this year to make way for a five-story project with 80 affordable apartments on the edge of the Poplar Grove neighborhood. The cafe, owned by Switchpoint Community Resource Center, sits on a roughly 5,600-square-foot parcel and will shift to mobile and pop-up service while the nonprofit redevelops the site. Switchpoint says it hopes to bring back a permanent coffee space once construction wraps.
According to Building Salt Lake, a demolition permit filed with the city lists the property as MU-6 zoned and calls for a five-story replacement building. The permit lists an approximate start date of Sept. 1, although Switchpoint's chief implementation officer Zachary Almaguer told the outlet the nonprofit expects demolition to begin by the end of the year. The application and filings also show the current structure is about 5,600 square feet.
Who the apartments are for
Switchpoint says the new apartments are aimed at households earning roughly 30% to 60% of the area median income (AMI). Salt Lake City's Housing Stability Division lists 30% AMI in 2026 at $26,500 for a single person and $37,850 for a family of four, a level the city labels "deeply affordable." City guidance also includes calculators and rules that spell out how demolition and redevelopment affect the city's affordable housing stock.
Switchpoint's housing push
The North Temple project will be phase four of Switchpoint's Fairpark campus. The nonprofit already operates Switchpoint Fairpark and The Point by Switchpoint, which together provide roughly 194 deeply affordable units in the area. Switchpoint Community Resource Center has converted former hotels into supportive housing and continued to add new units, and local coverage noted the nonprofit broke ground on another Fairpark phase in April. KSL reported the April groundbreaking and detailed plans to serve seniors and veterans with on-site services.
What happens to the coffee shop
While the building comes down and the new apartments go up, Switchpoint officials say the coffee operation will run as a mobile and pop-up service. Building Salt Lake quotes Zachary Almaguer on the transition and notes CEO Carol Hollowell telling the outlet, "With costs continuing to rise in every aspect of life, housing and especially affordable housing become even harder to find." The nonprofit says it remains committed to expanding deeply affordable housing while keeping community-focused services in the neighborhood.
Why this project matters
Salt Lake City's planning documents call for a sustained push to build deeply affordable homes, with the Housing SLC plan setting minimum targets that prioritize units for renters at 30% AMI or below. The broader strategy, laid out in the city's Housing SLC plan, shows why relatively small infill projects like this one count toward long-term affordability goals across the city. For neighbors, the tradeoff is losing a familiar storefront in the short term while gaining more permanently affordable apartments in a corridor city leaders have already targeted for housing growth.
