Arbor 515 (Wilde Wood Tower)
Adaptive Reuse
515 East 100 South, Salt Lake City
Architect: Bill Browning
Original Construction: 1981
National Register: Not eligible, owner committed to register when 50 Years Old
The People Behind It
Giv Group
At a Glance
Arbor 515 receives the Adaptive Reuse award for giving a significant yet vulnerable building a future it might not otherwise have had. Rather than clearing a vacant Modernist office tower for new construction, the Utah Perpetual Housing Fund preserved Bill Browning's distinctive exterior massing, upper-floor walkouts, and brick-and-steel facade while reconfiguring the interior to serve an urgent community need. The result delivers 96 units of affordable housing, a Montessori school, and a first-of-its-kind renter wealth-building program all within a building that, by being saved and reimagined, remains part of Salt Lake City's architectural story rather than a gap in it.
The Story
The 14-story building at 515 East 100 South has worn several names over the decades, but its most recent transformation may be its most meaningful. Originally known as Wilde Wood Tower, the building was designed by Bill Browning, one of Utah's most significant Modernist architects, whose portfolio includes the J.C. Penney Building on Main Street, East Elementary in Tooele, and the Steiner-American Building on South Temple, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Browning's distinctive design concept placed an L on top of an L in opposite directions, creating a series of upper-floor walkouts and gardens that define the building's exterior character. The design was also technologically forward-looking, incorporating an in-house computer to monitor mechanical and electrical systems, along with chilled-water storage and evaporative-cooling innovations well ahead of their time in 1981. For years, the building served as office space, and like many commercial properties of its era, it eventually sat vacant and underutilized.
The Utah Perpetual Housing Fund and Rocky Mountain Homes Fund, with more than $12 million in funding from the Salt Lake Community Reinvestment Agency and additional partner financing, purchased the property in 2023 as the Perpetual Housing Fund's inaugural project. The conversion was neither simple nor straightforward. Office buildings present particular challenges when adapted for residential use: wider floor plates, minimal plumbing infrastructure, and unconventional layouts. The team navigated all of these, reconfiguring the interior to create 96 apartments ranging from studios to four-bedroom units between 450 and 1,600 square feet. The building's unique angular geometry, rather than being treated as an obstacle, informed the design of individual units, resulting in layouts with distinctive character. Residents began moving in by floor as renovation progressed well ahead of what new construction could have achieved.
What emerged is more than a housing project. Arbor 515 includes Pinyon Montessori, a micro-school serving children ages 3 to 12 on the second floor; an on-site fitness center; a community lounge; coworking spaces; covered parking; and a planned restaurant. The building is also one of the first in the nation to incorporate a renter wealth-building model through its Tenant Wealth Initiative, through which residents earn financial credits from rent payments that can later be applied toward a down payment or shared profits if the property is refinanced or sold. It is a project designed not just to house people but to build stability and equity for the families it serves.
Preservation Work
The preservation case for Arbor 515 begins with the decision to save the building at all. Wilde Wood Tower, designed by Bill Browning in 1981, does not yet meet the 50-year threshold for National Register eligibility, and Modernist buildings of its era are frequently dismissed as insufficiently historic, passed over in favor of older or more ornate structures that more easily fit conventional ideas of what preservation is for. A vacant office tower of this age and style is a candidate for removal. The Utah Perpetual Housing Fund chose otherwise, and that foundational decision is itself the most significant preservation act of the project.
Within the conversion, the team worked to honor Browning's original design vision wherever the adaptive reuse allowed. The building's distinctive massing, rooted in Browning's concept of placing an L on top of an L in opposite directions, was retained in full, preserving the series of upper-floor walkouts and gardens that define the building's exterior character. The brick-and-steel exterior remained intact throughout the interior renovation. The wider floor plates that made the office-to-residential conversion technically challenging also preserved some of the building's most distinctive Modernist qualities: generous proportions, high ceilings, and large windows that give the converted apartments a scale and quality of light that new affordable housing construction rarely achieves. These are not incidental features; they are the direct inheritance of Browning's original design, and they remain because the building was saved rather than replaced.
The owners have stated their intent to pursue a National Register nomination when the building becomes eligible a commitment that reflects an understanding of Browning's significance to Utah's architectural history and a recognition that the work done here was not simply a real estate transaction but the beginning of a longer stewardship relationship with a building that represents an important and underrecognized chapter of Utah's built heritage.
Why It Matters
The 96 affordable housing units now in place were delivered in half the time new construction would have required, a direct benefit of choosing to work with the existing structure. The Tenant Wealth Initiative gives residents a path toward financial stability that extends well beyond a roof over their heads. A Montessori school, coworking space, and shared amenities make the building a community in itself. At the ribbon cutting, Mayor Erin Mendenhall called it a "model for how we can turn affordability into stability and stability into equity." Governor Spencer Cox, who joined the mayor at the event as a member of the National Housing Crisis Task Force, called Arbor 515 "an example to everyone across the country of the good that can happen when the nonprofit sphere, the public sphere, and the private sphere all come together."
The project's significance extended beyond its walls. At the ribbon cutting, Mayor Mendenhall announced more than $14 million in new city funding to continue building on Arbor 515's model through the Housing Development Loan Program and the Residential Wealth Building Program, a signal that what happened at 515 East 100 South is not a one-off but a proof of concept for how Salt Lake City intends to address its housing crisis.
Arbor 515 proves that preservation and progress are not in competition. It protects what is worth keeping, serves people who need it, and demonstrates that a building saved is often a community strengthened.