Salt Lake officials hoping to save Japan Town

Raymond Uno hasn't lost hope that the once-vibrant Japan Town in downtown Salt Lake City will once again be a bustling community.

For now he's focused on saving the remnants: the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple and the Salt Lake Japanese Church of Christ on 100 South between 200 and 300 West.

Japan Town, which once housed Japanese-American businesses and residences, was uprooted when the Salt Palace was built, Uno said. Now the Salt Palace is expanding, and the development is threatening the two churches, which Uno described as "the core of the community."

"We're not trying to be obstructionists, we're just trying to protect ourselves," Uno said. "We lost Japan Town. . . . If we don't speak up, who will?"

Uno is president of the Japanese Community Preservation Committee, which was formed in response to the Salt Palace expansion. Representatives of the Japanese-American community have met weekly with developers and are being given some say in the design process to minimize the impact.

The 150,000-square-foot meeting place expansion was designed to keep the Outdoor Retailers, who hold two conventions in Salt Lake City each year, from moving their convention elsewhere.

Last week Mayor Rocky Anderson, the Salt Lake City Council, the Salt Lake County Council and acting county Mayor Alan Dayton issued a joint resolution to work toward promoting cultural preservation and revitalization of Japan Town. However, Uno said there are yet no official plans for renovation.

Anderson acknowledged the Salt Palace expansion will impact the two churches but said bringing back Japan Town is a realistic goal.

"We're endeavoring to make certain that the county and city partner in doing whatever we can to revitalize Japan Town, which was almost entirely obliterated by the construction of the Salt Palace," he said.

The ideal, he said, would be for the county to purchase the property where the Buddhist temple is so that it could be moved to the west side of the block and to purchase the Christian church's parking lot so that it could be expanded.

The city would then "build a plaza on 100 South, which would serve as a buffer between the parking and freight traffic going into the Salt Palace."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com