Enrollment soars at Main St. SLCC

The temporary banner still hanging outside of Salt Lake Community College's Main Street Center, which reopened last fall, isn't a sign the campus in downtown Salt Lake City is foundering.

Student enrollment keeps going up, with the likes of Ethan Loveless, 23, who is taking an introductory film class that he says, on any other campus, would be held in a crowded auditorium. He likes the one-on-one attention at SLCC's Main Street Center.

"It's just really convenient if you're working downtown," Loveless said, about to unlock his bicycle for a quick trip to his job.

Sisters Hollie Teeter, 24, and Taffee Teeter, 26, are taking an introduction to drawing class. They often take UTA's TRAX train to school. They're impressed by how many classrooms SLCC has at this location. Like Loveless, they also like being close to work.

For whatever reason, more and more SLCC students are headed downtown.

Early this year, enrollment at 115 S. Main was about 500 — before 2005, enrollment never topped 300.

Now 800 chairs are filled in classrooms, with fewer than 20 students and sometimes fewer than 10 students per instructor.

But all is not well, as SLCC searches for someone to rent 20,000 square feet of space on the ground level and in the basement. SLCC lost its renter, the Museum of Utah Art and History, last spring when problems surfaced with the lease.

"We're probably losing money, but our enrollment has really, really helped," said Larry Landward, director of the Main Street Center.

The museum had entered into a 50-year lease with SLCC without an escape clause.

The State Board of Regents, which oversees public higher education, wanted SLCC to renegotiate a lease that would allow SLCC to break a contract with the museum if the school one day needed the space.

"That was kind of a sticking point for the museum," said Dave Buhler, Utah System of Higher Education associate commissioner of public affairs. "You don't want to tie up state-owned space forever — things may change for the college."

SLCC consequently returned four months of rent — the cost was $8 per square foot — to the museum, which will remain only a neighbor, occupying the two buildings to the south of SLCC.

Landward recently said negotiations are under way to bring in a new renter. He said a new, more permanent sign for out front may come after a new renter for the first floor and basement is secure.

In the meantime, word of mouth, convenience, access to/from TRAX trains, more course offerings — 76 total, up from 26 classes in January — and free parking are all adding up to more students here.

SLCC officials this year also moved the paralegal department to the downtown location, which added about 150 students, according to Landward. He said last January that enrollment at his campus could one day reach 2,500.

Prior to the fall of 2004, SLCC was in a costly lease at the Main Street Center and the building was deemed unsafe and in need of renovation. The campus had been open a year before being forced to close in the fall of 2003.

SLCC officials received permission to opt out of the lease and purchase the building for $4.6 million. SLCC made seismic upgrades to the building and renovated the inside before it reopened.

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com