Landmark store holds its ground

With just 45 feet of frontage on South Temple Street, the upscale Utah Woolen Mills clothing store is hardly imposing. Blink twice and you've passed it.

But as the imposing shadow of redevelopment grows ever larger, no business is in a more pivotal position in Salt Lake City's downtown corridor.

All around, companies have vacated their premises, leaving the area surrounding Crossroads Plaza to look a little like downtown Beirut. Everyone is bracing for the wrecking ball. The hotel on the corner is offering last-chance room rates.

Only Utah Woolen Mills remains without a closing date. And for only one reason: it can.

Well, make that two reasons.

Business has never been better.

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Leases. Bart Stringham, who, with his sons B.J. and Brandon, runs the day-to-day operations of Utah Woolen Mills, knows leases. "If business is bad, a lease can be a millstone around your neck," he says.

Then there are the kinds of leases Utah Woolen Mills is holding onto.

For the next 62 years, until 2068, the clothier is contractually entitled to occupy the 8,000-square-foot building at 59 W. South Temple and maintain use of a dozen underground parking spaces behind the store.

The leases were entered into in 1978 and 1990 with Zions Securities, the arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that manages church-owned property. This includes all of the ground that borders Temple Square and is at the heart of the LDS Church-sanctioned massive $1 billion downtown redevelopment plan.

For the Stringhams, their leases are the dead opposite of a millstone.

Either the leases are renegotiated, or Utah Woolen Mills will have to be built around.

"We don't want to be unreasonable," says Bart, "we just want to be dealt with fairly."

Fair being in the eye of the lease-holder.

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Curiously, Utah Woolen Mills has been here before — sitting smack in the middle of alleged progress.

In 1977, the company occupied 30,000 square feet on Richards Street, the now-defunct thoroughfare between South Temple and 100 South that gave itself up for Crossroads Plaza. To make way for the mall, the Stringhams accepted a deal to downsize and relocate.