SALT LAKE CITY — On the corner of 800 South and State Street in downtown Salt Lake City, on what used to be the location of the SEARS building, life is growing.
The empty lot has turned into a lake, which community members and several people online have informally dubbed "SEARS Lake."
The department store opened in 1947 and closed in January 2018 as part of several closures of Sears stores across the country. Intermountain Healthcare purchased the property and demolished the building in 2022.
Since demolition, no structure has been constructed on the lot. And thanks to two really wet years in a row in Utah, SEARS Lake was born.
However, this is no standstill body of water. As the saying goes: "Where there is water, there is life." Birds have flocked to the area, and plants and wildflowers have grown — a stark contrast to the urban sprawl surrounding the manmade lake.
“I think the neighbors just have a fascination with something that was an urban spot, and is now kind of being reclaimed,” said Spencer Ryan Hall, a Salt Lake City resident who has tweeted often about the area. “The birds are back. You see animals all around. It's a spot that has cars on all sides. But it's kind of becoming a nature spot again.
“And in fact, somebody on Google made it a Nature Conservancy for a minute until Google took the pin away.”
SEARS Lake’s likeness has become quite popular with many people online, and even news outlets have caught on.
Perfect day to paddle board on Sears Lake pic.twitter.com/7Ii1oHmHRu
— Salt Lake City Weekly (@CityWeekly) March 8, 2024
Someone painted a sea monster on the island. There’s even a picture of someone paddleboarding on the lake.
“There's a little island in the back that we call Men's Shoes Island,” Hall said with a grin. “Because when it was the Sears, that's where men's shoes was. It's the site of the former Sears building that was here forever — really historic building."
Water table so high it’s starting to submerge the sea monster in Sears Lake. cc: @SLsees https://t.co/OuU8zE0V6d pic.twitter.com/CSsLEsvqPC
— Spencer Ryan Hall (@spencerhall) February 22, 2024
And it was only a matter of time for nature to take its course.
“You're in the middle of a city and certainly seagulls, some other species are going to be finding some value there,” said Russell Norvell, the avian program conservation coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. “Give it long enough, you know, nature abhors vacuum. It will be colonized by algae and plants and you'll develop an ecosystem there.
“This is a quiet spot, there’s a fence and the water area is safe. You're you're able to avoid land-based predators, and largely anybody else. So it's a good rest spot, if nothing else for now," Norvell added.
But does a long-standing unnatural body of water affect the animals that use it?
According to Norvell, the lake’s current state is nothing to be worried about.
“It's not toxic,” Norvell said. “It's not a toxic pool or anything at this point, as far as I know. There's been no issues with water quality or contaminants. So yeah, there's no real issue here.”
According to Intermountain spokesman Jess Gomez, plans for the property are still being developed and there is no timeline yet as to when a structure will be up.
But while all is well and good now — Norvell left one last thought and reminded Utahns of the importance of maintenance of really any space that’s left untouched.
“It doesn't take long for these for these spaces to become re-wilded,” Norvell said. "I think in many ways, they may not be the kind of wild spaces that we want, or we’d love to see in terms of like some sort of natural restoration ethic.”
