Salt Lake may buy into Main

Salt Lake City leaders — staring at boarded up downtown storefronts — might be ready to use tax dollars to purchase languishing downtown Main Street property.

Thursday, the city's Redevelopment Agency Board, which is the City Council, will kick around the idea of purchasing two buildings at 125 and 127 S. Main Street for roughly $1.7 million.

The RDA has dealt with the two buildings before as it has tried to revitalize the city's largely shuttered Main Street.

Last year, Seattle-investor Gene Horbach, a big contributor to Mayor Rocky Anderson's campaign, asked the board for a $6 million low-interest loan to renovate the two buildings and place a dance club and cultural museum there.

The board denied the request, and the buildings were purchased by Wasatch Industrial, which is looking to sell.

The RDA, then, has a chance to buy the buildings, which have been vacant for years save for a brief period before and during the 2002 Winter Games when they served as a visitors information center.

If the RDA buys the buildings, it would then lease them to the Utah Museum of Art & History, which would then need to raise some $8.3 million to refurbish the buildings and install exhibits.

Of course, if the museum backers fail to raise the $8.3 million then the RDA would be left holding the two empty properties.

"If funding is not realized, the RDA would be left with a building that could be difficult to lease," RDA executive director Dave Oka wrote to the board.

Oka noted that the museum backers have only raised $600,000 of the $8.3 million, and, adding to the bleak funding picture, many foundations have faced funding setbacks recently, Oka noted. Moreover, Salt Lake County's Zoos, Arts and Parks tax may be a potential source of funding, but those funds are "overburdened with requests," Oka wrote.

Still, board member Eric Jergensen is in favor of using RDA funds for the purchase.

The museum, Jergensen said, is struggling to gain funds because it doesn't have a firm location. If the RDA were to purchase the building and commit the space the museum could shore up support. In addition, the museum is just what Main Street needs to bring more people downtown, Jergensen said.