How Astra Tower unintentionally became Utah's tallest building with the state's largest mural

Ed Lewis never intended to construct Utah’s tallest building when his company began planning Astra Tower some seven years ago.

The high-rise was supposed to mirror a 27-story building that Kensington Investment Company constructed in Boston.

However, designers needed to add height to account for the smaller lot size. Then, after compiling a market study, he found that they needed to add more parking to account for future renters who like to drive to locations all across the region. Adding a service elevator on the north side of the building required more height to account for 35 lost units.

Add it all up, and Kensington’s building suddenly became 41 stories and 451 feet high, pushing it past the 422-foot Wells Fargo Center to become the tallest building in downtown Salt Lake City and the state.

“I’m really freaking proud it came out that way and turned out the way that it did,” said Lewis, Kensington’s CEO, as he stood outside of the building Tuesday, reflecting on the journey.

Residents began moving into Astra Tower late last summer, but only about half of the building’s floors were complete at the time. More units have gone online in phases since, along with other amenities, leading to a ceremony on Tuesday to celebrate the project’s total completion.

Turning new heights into art

All the building’s changes unintentionally led to a massive, eight-story wall that felt very blank as residents started moving in. Kensington explored the idea of turning its western wall into a giant projector screen, but it ultimately settled on a partnership with the Salt Lake City Arts Council on a plan to fill about 13,000 square feet of space with paint.

They reached out to artists seeking to take on what would ultimately become the state’s largest mural, which generated at least a few dozen submissions. That’s where they came across Miles Toland and Joseph Toney, a pair of muralists whose work has popped up all over the world.

Toney, who lives in Utah, and Toland befriended each other during South Salt Lake’s Mural Fest a few years ago. They kept in touch and, when they saw the artist request come in, they started talking about collaborating on a design.

“We did know how large it was gonna be, and that was part of the excitement behind the project,” Toney told KSL.com, recalling the origin.

All of the artists were given the freedom to design whatever they wanted. Toney and Toland bounced around pencil sketches nearly a dozen times before they pieced together four designs.

One concept ultimately featured human hands forming out of clouds and mountains, locking hands up over a lake. A few migratory birds are flying above, next to an immense orange moon, all of which is meant to symbolize the cooperation and collaboration across different groups needed to address the stewardship of Utah’s natural beauty.

It quickly won over the developers, fitting into what they wanted from the space.

“I think it represents the local geography,” Lewis said.

Toland and Toney started working on the mural last month, using about 70 gallons of paint and another 20 gallons of varnish. They estimate they also went through about 100 spray paint cans over four weeks to slowly turn the giant blank wall into a massive art piece.

A record-breaking piece at that.

“It’s an honor to know that our work is at this scale,” Toland said. “The largest wall might be a temporary title but an exciting title nonetheless for the time being.”

A record to be broken?

Astra Tower now boasts the tallest building and largest mural in the state, while its air quality beacon, installed earlier this year, is a first of its kind in the nation. It also adds 377 units of various sizes, ranging from studio to three bedrooms, to a city looking for housing. Lewis estimates that about 35% of the building is already occupied, but it expects to reach about 95% by the summer of 2026.

It won’t add to the city’s affordable housing stock, but the project adds much-needed housing of all types as the city continues to grow, said Blake Thomas, senior adviser on real estate and capital projects for Salt Lake City.

He also sees Astra Tower as a testament to the type of development coming Salt Lake City’s way. And as more redevelopment occurs across downtown, it’s only a matter of time before other Astra Tower records are broken — intentionally or not.

“I’m sure this is a record that will probably be broken,” Thomas said, as he glanced up at the building. “Knowing the need that we have and thinking of the highest and best use of our land, I’m excited for this to be a record-breaking day and for future records to be broken.”

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Featured image of Astra Tower by Brice Tucker, Deseret News.

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