Salt Palace expansion stalls

Plans to expand the Salt Palace Convention Center to keep the Outdoor Retailers trade show in town are getting bogged down in politics.

Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson says the city, county and Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau need to jointly ask the Legislature for a special session to raise hotel taxes, which would fund the estimated $40 million, 175,000-square-foot expansion.

County Mayor Nancy Workman, saying there's no way the Legislature will agree to a special session and that it would be harmful even to ask, has instead proposed building an underground parking garage and foundation for the expansion using local money. She proposes going to the Legislature next year during its regular session to ask for the hotel tax increase.

Workman's plan essentially concedes the funds needed for the entire expansion can't be obtained right now. It nevertheless begins the process of expansion as a good-faith gesture to Outdoor Retailers organizers that it will happen.

Anderson and Workman are now pointing fingers, accusing each other of political game-playing with a convention that pumps $38 million into the economy at stake. The issue came to a head at a meeting between them last week.

"Mayor Workman and her staff have done everything they can to undermine this," Anderson said. "This has everything to do with politics of the worst sort. . . . Mayor Workman doesn't want her fingerprints anywhere near a tax increase before the general election."

Workman's deputy mayor, Alan Dayton, says Anderson is the one with an agenda.

"(The expansion) would be a pretty normal process if Rocky hadn't tried to inject this bizarre political angle into this," he said.

Dayton said, given the fact that it's a political year and the nature of the request, a special session will never happen. And pushing it too hard would damage legislative relations, making it harder to get the tax passed next year, he said.

VNU Expositions, which stages the twice-yearly Outdoor Retailers shows in Salt Lake City, has set a deadline of June 30 for local officials to present their plans for expansion. A move to another city is not an idle threat — even now, VNU is soliciting feedback and proposals on new locations.

VNU spokeswoman Lori Crabtree declined comment on the issue.