Murray city planners have laid out a vision for roughly 245 acres surrounding its Central Station transit hub, mapping out office towers, retail corridors, trails and new housing densities across four development districts. The catch: a big chunk of that land sits atop the 142-acre Murray Smelter Superfund site, where federal cleanup rules still restrict residential construction.
The draft plan, detailed by Building Salt Lake, does not publish a total housing-unit count, even though it spells out target densities for several of its planned districts. The area has sat largely vacant for years, the outlet reports, in part because of its Superfund designation. The Murray Planning Commission has already recommended that the City Council approve the draft.
Four Districts, Different Densities
The plan's transit-oriented development complex, closest to the rail platforms, calls for multifamily housing at 75 to 80 units per acre alongside 500,000 to 510,000 square feet of new office space, according to the outlet's reporting. That same complex is envisioned to include hospital-related facilities, street-level retail and hospitality uses, though it would first need parking and transportation demand management measures before any redevelopment could proceed.
Nearby, the plan's office district would pair 185,000 to 190,000 square feet of office space with housing at 50 units per acre and a grocery store of roughly 27,000 to 28,000 square feet. Cottonwood Creek Village, another of the four districts, is pitched for a mix of market-rate and affordable housing, with apartments planned at 50 units per acre and townhouses at 20 units per acre alongside boutique retail and dining oriented toward Little Cottonwood Creek. The historic downtown district, meanwhile, would see residential development at 35 to 50 units per acre alongside 55,000 to 60,000 square feet of shops and restaurants.
Across the whole plan area, the report describes projections of 755,000 to 780,000 square feet of general office space, 605,000 to 645,000 square feet of hospital facilities, 148,000 to 164,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, 112,000 to 124,000 square feet of entertainment retail, and 160,000 to 167,000 square feet of hospitality. The station area sits next to Intermountain Medical Center, and Intermountain Health is separately developing its own master-plan update; per the outlet's reporting, the city's plan is designed to connect with that update once it's released.
The Superfund Shadow Over Housing
The reason this land has stayed empty for so long traces back to the smelters that operated on the site until 1949. The U.S. EPA designated the Murray Smelter site a Superfund site in 1994, and cleanup work has since removed roughly 580 tons of the most contaminated material and consolidated about 84,000 cubic yards of soil beneath Cottonwood Street and part of UTA's park-and-ride, per Building Salt Lake's account.
Federal cleanup documents make clear that the residential restriction is still active. According to the EPA's Record of Decision, institutional controls — implemented through a Murray City ordinance establishing an overlay district — are meant to keep residential and contact-based uses off the contaminated ground, prohibiting residential uses at the site. Murray enforces that restriction through its own smelter site overlay district, the station-area report notes. A separate EPA site profile confirms that institutional controls remain necessary for any residential parcels within the site.
Those institutional controls specifically require that residents be separated from contaminated soil, limiting residential uses to upper floors, non-residential ground-floor uses, or parking podiums that serve as buffers, according to the station plan's own framework as described in the reporting. A Utah Department of Environmental Quality review likewise states that additional institutional controls are required, though the available record doesn't spell out their full scope or implementation status.
There is a path forward, at least in theory. The EPA and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality have signaled they're open to amending the Record of Decision to permit housing if adequate institutional controls are adopted, per Building Salt Lake's reporting — though that amendment process alone is estimated to cost between $275,000 and $750,000.
Streets, Trails And Parking Overhaul
Vine Street is slated to become the plan's primary east-west spine, retaining two general-purpose lanes and a center turn lane within its existing 80-foot right-of-way while adding 8-foot sidewalks and 8-foot planting strips on both sides, plus a 12-foot two-way protected bike lane on the south side. Where Vine Street crosses I-15, the roadway would narrow to 48 feet with 6-foot sidewalks, and both Cottonwood Street and 300 West would see lane reductions elsewhere in the district.
A new Little Cottonwood Creek Trail segment would run from 300 West to Cottonwood Street, eventually connecting toward Murray City Park and the Jordan River Parkway. The plan also proposes phasing out surface parking lots in favor of structured parking screened from public streets, and it floats a citywide parking district that would consolidate lots currently operated separately by UTA and Intermountain Health.
Not every city department is fully on board yet. Murray's engineering department warned that reducing lanes on Vine and Cottonwood could create rail-crossing queues and peak-hour delays, and separately flagged that the proposed 300 West alignment would complicate freight access. The city's power department reported conflicts with existing lines and a transmission corridor running through the area, and said the plan currently lacks the load data needed for a full technical review.
Why The State Is Involved
Murray's push isn't happening in isolation. Under HB 462, enacted in 2022, Utah requires cities with commuter and light rail stations to adopt plans covering the half-mile area around those stations — and the Central Station area sits at the junction of FrontRunner, TRAX, the Mid-Valley Express bus line and a regional bus loop, extending roughly from 4800 South to 5300 South between State Street and I-15.
The plan will begin with a form-based code for the transit-oriented development complex, governing building height, massing and street orientation, according to the outlet's reporting. To pay for the infrastructure upgrades, the plan identifies transportation impact fees, special assessment areas, public-private partnerships, ground leases and grants as potential funding tools. Murray's planning division has asked the City Council to adopt the overall development vision for the 245 acres surrounding Central Station.
