A 62-unit affordable apartment building at 511 W. 200 South has reopened after a top-to-bottom renovation that added solar panels, redesigned units, and a full slate of new ground-floor businesses to a stretch of downtown Salt Lake City that once housed a 1,000-bed homeless shelter and an open-air drug market. Norbridge Court, owned by nonprofit developer Artspace, has been in operation since 2001, but its recent overhaul marks one of the most visible signs yet of change in the Rio Grande District.
The renovation includes all-new kitchens and bathrooms, in-unit washers and dryers, upgraded building systems, and redesigned apartment layouts, according to Building Salt Lake. The building also underwent a complete exterior recladding and added roughly 200 kilowatts of solar power, and it is now certified Energy Star and Department of Energy Zero Energy Ready Home. Artspace president Jessica Norie said the nonprofit provides affordable residential and commercial space with an emphasis on supporting the arts and strengthening communities, per the outlet's report.
Once known as Greek Town, the stretch of West 200 South where Norbridge Court sits formerly hosted a red-light district, Skid Row, an illegal drugs market, and that 1,000-bed emergency homeless shelter, the report notes. The shelter was closed and demolished five years before the article's publication. That timeline lines up with the broader closure of The Road Home's 1,100-bed emergency shelter on nearby Rio Grande Street, which permanently shut down in November 2019 as officials shifted toward smaller, decentralized resource centers across Salt Lake County, according to Route Fifty. The neighborhood had also been the target of Operation Rio Grande, a multi-agency law enforcement and social service initiative launched in August 2017 with an estimated two-year budget of $67 million aimed at dismantling open-air drug markets, as detailed by KSL.com.
New Life on the Ground Floor
Norbridge Court's ground-floor commercial spaces are now 100% leased, with tenants including Reflective Arts Studio, Saturday Cycles, Under the Umbrella Bookstore and Café, Art Access, Empire Ink Tattoos, and Akimbo Clothing, the article states. Cindy Franke said Artspace renovated Norbridge Court while preserving its affordability, according to the same report. The renovation also added an outdoor courtyard for small community events, replacing a space that was previously underutilized, along with a fitness center and computer room.
Among the new commercial tenants is Craft Lake City, which will offer quarterly exhibitions and receptions through 2027 at the building. The organization has partnered with Artspace to launch “Craft Lake City Contemporary,” a quarterly pop-up gallery series that began on September 2 with an all-female group exhibition titled “Rarely Named,” guest-curated by Nancy E. Rivera and featuring ten Utah contemporary artisans and live performances, per Craft Lake City. Adding to the building's fresh visual identity, Salt Lake City artist collective Smock and Roll wrapped Norbridge Court's exterior in a bright abstract mural inspired by the mountain ridgelines surrounding the Salt Lake Valley, as reported by SLUG Magazine. Norbridge Court also received a large-scale exterior and interior-hallway mural as part of the same renovation, according to Building Salt Lake's report.
From $50 to a $31.5 Million Nonprofit
Artspace was founded in 1980 by local artists needing a place to live and work, and its founder, Stephen Goldsmith, has said the organization started with just $50. Goldsmith helmed Artspace for 20 years, running it as a volunteer for three years before drawing a paycheck, and it took the nonprofit two years to receive IRS approval, the article notes. He later served as planning director for Mayor Rocky Anderson, who was mayor from 2000 to 2008, and Goldsmith hired Norie as Artspace's current president.
Artspace's original building was a converted rail warehouse along Pierpont Avenue. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit now owns seven affordable mixed-use projects that together provide 278 housing units and more than 125,000 square feet of commercial space at below-market rents, with assets worth $31.5 million according to the organization's IRS 990 filing. Artspace does not screen tenants based on artist status, and its buildings remain affordable for both commercial and residential tenants, per the outlet's account.
Artspace's footprint in the immediate area runs deep. Directly south of Norbridge Court at 230 S. 500 West, the nonprofit converted a historic 1905 ZCMI warehouse into Artspace City Center, 18 live/work townhouses and commercial space built around a skylit atrium where supply trains once docked, funded in part through historic and new markets tax credits, according to Artspace Utah. Back in 1995, Artspace also converted the 1915 California Tire and Rubber Company warehouse at 353 W. 200 South, originally designed as a cold-storage facility by Utah State Capitol architect Richard Kletting, into 53 residential lofts and 10,000 square feet of commercial space, earning a 1997 award from the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials.
What's Next for the Block
Artspace plans to develop a new ground-up project on the surface parking lot west of Norbridge Court, at 545 W. 200 South, that will include ground-floor commercial space and affordable housing units. The project has no specified number of units and no specific timeline yet, though Artspace will begin planning it in fall 2026, per Building Salt Lake's reporting.
The Rio Grande area has experienced significant change and new multifamily development along 200 South in recent years, a trend Hoodline has tracked with a west-side towing lot now becoming a 169-unit affordable tower near the Folsom Trail. Other institutional investment has followed a similar path: in May 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded a $2 million Brownfield Remediation grant to the University of Utah to clean up a contaminated 2-acre plot in the Rio Grande District, part of a plan to turn underutilized rail corridor land into an innovation hub, according to theU. The university had originally acquired the parcel for $6.8 million in 2021.
Longer-term, a citizen-proposed concept called the Rio Grande Plan calls for sinking 500 West rail lines into an underground concrete train box, reconnecting east and west Salt Lake City while freeing up roughly 75 acres of former rail yards for transit-oriented development, according to the Salt Lake City Council. The city has completed a screening analysis of the plan's engineering and economic feasibility, though no timeline for construction has been set. For now, Norbridge Court's 62 two- and three-bedroom apartments remain reserved for households earning between 20% and 80% of the Area Median Income, with two-bedroom units listed at rents starting around $1,299 per month as of 2026, according to Trulia.
