Pioneer Park a 'political hot potato'

For $174 a night at the Hilton Homewood Suites Hotel, guests receive posh rooms with wireless Internet, free sausage-and-egg breakfasts and an evening reception with hors d'oeuvres and gourmet coffee. Anybody who feels like it can sit down at the shiny baby grand in the lobby and tickle the keys.

Tourists are only one block from The Gateway shopping center and a quick stroll from taking in a concert or a Jazz game at EnergySolutions Arena.

Oh, and there's one more amenity: Pioneer Park is right across the street.

Thankfully, most of the hotel's customers are business people, familiar with the park's long history as a haven for alcoholics, drug dealers and transients, says hotel manager Ted Capener. You won't catch many of them out for an evening jog through the park or a quick game of Italian bocce.

But for families and other first-time visitors who don't realize they're at ground zero in one of Salt Lake City's most crime-ridden areas, a step outside the hotel lobby can come as a shock.

Some folks are bothered by it, no doubt about it, said Ted, 46, who has managed the hotel since it opened on the former site of the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen almost two years ago.

"We have to make sure we tell them to turn left on 300 South and take 400 West to Gateway, or they'll be walking right through all the people mingling outside the homeless shelter. And the park, well, that's a huge challenge for us. It's certainly not a place to take your kids."

One of Ted's guests was strolling out of Iggy's Sports Bar next door on Oct. 10 when he heard somebody screaming at Pioneer Park. He rushed to help and found one of two stabbing victims, barely alive.

Not exactly what an out-of-towner expects after a day of sightseeing.

"Nobody's been hurt or injured yet from the hotel," said Capener, knocking on the top of his wooden desk. Most of the homeless are harmless, he said, and crack dealers use their large numbers to blend in.

"But when people are panhandled and harassed, it's intimidating," he said.

"We're in this fantastic location, just a block from great shopping and within walking distance of the downtown, but we have all these constant issues. It's a serious dilemma."

Capener knows that his voice is only one of many in the ongoing battle to clean up Pioneer Park and the surrounding neighborhood, but he wanted to get together for a Free Lunch chat just the same. He's been in the hotel business for 21 years, working everywhere from Chicago to Wendover, but he's never dealt with as many problems as he sees from his office window on 300 South.