Rocky pushing petals

Mayor Rocky Anderson's latest effort to revitalize Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City is a bit flowery.

As part of his ongoing effort to breathe life into Main Street, which he considers "too sterile," Anderson is once again urging the Salt Lake City Council to spend up to $100,000 in taxpayer funds to bring hanging floral baskets and planters to Main.

"I hope we will look into this," Anderson wrote in a recent letter to the council. "It could add a lot to our wide sidewalks and the too-sterile appearance of much of our downtown."

The city already is heavily invested in its most talked about street. Last year it gave $100,000 — $20,000 apiece — to five businesses willing to move to Main Street. Later, the city bought two buildings, at 125 S. Main and 127 S. Main, for $1.7 million.

But those efforts haven't had much of an effect. Three of Main Street's largest retailers — Old Navy, the Gap and Eddie Bauer — recently closed, adding to other vacant storefronts.

For his part, the mayor likes to point to promising signs on Main Street such as new restaurants, fewer office-space vacancies, KUTV's new studio and plans by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to pump $500 million into its Crossroads Plaza and ZCMI Center malls.

Part of the solution to bring people back to Main Street might be flowers, Anderson said in the letter to the council. Hanging flower baskets and planters would liven up the street the way they do in places like Victoria, British Columbia, and — closer to home — in Vernal, he said.

Back in 2002, the mayor proposed hanging flower baskets but was quickly shot down by the City Council, acting as the city's Redevelopment Agency Board.

On Thursday, Anderson's administration will be back before the board asking for up to $100,000 to hire an outside contractor to place the floral arrangements on Main.

"How very floral of him," said RDA Board chairman Eric Jergensen.

The idea was rejected in 2002 for two primary reasons: The board thought there were more important ways the city could use its resources to enliven downtown; the board figured that because the city was mired in a drought, it shouldn't be wasting water on flower arrangements.

In response to that second complaint, Anderson is now proposing the flowers be drought-tolerant varieties.

The business community downtown, Jergensen said, is less interested in floral arrangements and more concerned about the city's efforts to bring housing and businesses to downtown. Already the city has "beautified" Main Street — bringing in wider sidewalks, trees and artistic benches — without success in attracting more retail establishments.

"I'm willing to consider it," Jergensen said. "But as I've talked to downtown businesses, they're more interested in something other than cosmetic efforts."

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