In close collaboration with Nancy Boskoff and the Salt Lake City Arts Council, we are currently formulating a strategic plan for a dynamic, multifaceted downtown arts district. The plan includes facility assessment, funding options, redevelopment opportunities, and programming strategies for new and existing arts venues. Our administration will work with arts organizations, the business community, governmental partners, and other City stakeholders to ensure Salt Lake City has an arts district to rival any city of our size. In fact, Salt Lake City has already been recognized by American Style magazine as among the top twenty-five arts destinations in the country.

The City�s Redevelopment Agency has augmented and consolidated our economic development successes. Among its many successes, last year the Agency loaned nearly $6.5 million to renovate buildings for residential, office, restaurant and retail uses. Among a great many notable projects, the RDA helped restore the Sugar House Monument and renovate the surrounding plaza, and aided the relocation of Junior�s Tavern, a locally owned business and downtown landmark, to Broadway Boulevard. Thanks to the assistance of the RDA, the City will commence the planned beautification of Broadway Boulevard this spring, adding a raised walkway, planted medians and bollard lighting to 300 South between Main Street and 400 West. These improvements will help create an attractive, charming, identifiable district to complement the many unique specialty shops and residential properties in the area, as well as Pioneer Park. This will spell great progress for our downtown.

Led by Louis Zunguze, the Salt Lake City Community Development Department and the Building Services and Licensing Division, with help from Orion Goff and Larry Butcher, is working to ensure our business and development community obtains the most efficient and thorough service possible when requesting permits from the City. The One-Stop Shop for building permits will ensure patrons of Building Services and Licensing, which issued over 2600 permits and performed nearly 2300 plan reviews last year, will benefit from a more collaborative approach among all of the City�s development review entities.

The Salt Lake City International Airport is central to the City�s economic development efforts, and connects our residents to the wider world. We are so fortunate to have a major hub international airport ten minutes away from our downtown. Under the phenomenal leadership of Tim Campbell and Russ Pack, who has generously served twice as Interim Airport Director, the Airport now serves historic numbers of passengers with unsurpassed efficiency and quality. Since 1999, the Airport has experienced an 8% increase in passengers, an 89% increase in scheduled departures, and a 120% increase in non-stop destinations, from 51 to 112. We are grateful to Delta for its extraordinarily beneficial partnership with Salt Lake City, and hope to see it continue for many years into the future.