Unity Center severs ties with Guadalupe School

Guadalupe School is out of the Unity Center.

In addition to that exit, Salt Lake City leaders now say city taxpayers will likely have to pay some of the operational costs associated with the west-side community center, which was a key piece of Mayor Rocky Anderson's deal to solve the Main Street Plaza fray.

"(Guadalupe School) will no longer be able to participate in the Unity Center at this time," Councilman Van Turner said. "Absolutely not."

The city had offered Guadalupe $750,000 in seed money if the school could raise the millions needed to build a new school on the Unity Center/Sorenson Multi-Cultural Center campus near 900 West and 1300 South. The Guadalupe School is a program of the Salt Lake City School District that teaches young low-income and at-risk grade school children.

But Turner said that offer has been rescinded since Guadalupe, which hasn't had an executive director for a year, hasn't been able to raise financial support.

Public Services director Rick Graham — Anderson's Unity Center point man — confirmed that the city now plans to use the $750,000 toward an expanded health and fitness component at the center.

"In light of the fact that the school has had a difficult time meeting its projected fund-raising needs, we felt it was time to separate ourselves," Graham said. "We've made it clear to them that we think it's time to move on."

In a sense, then, the city is back to Unity Center square one, Turner said. Now the city will move forward building what it originally intended — a center that will focus on health and fitness, community meeting space and possibly a small black box theater, he said.

However, Turner confessed the city has no one to operate the health and fitness components of the center and will likely end up having to run some of the center on its own.

"The city will step up for operations," he said, adding that the city doesn't know what operations and maintenance costs it will incur.

The city's new strategy is a "build it and they will come" plan. City leaders are hoping that once the center is complete groups like the University of Utah, Salt Lake Community College, Intermountain Health Care and others will step up to provide services.

"We have to go into this with a build it and they will come approach," Turner said.