Salt Lake County opts for bond to pay off museum construction

SALT LAKE CITY — Five-year-old Maxim can't stare at the brine shrimp in the bug area of the Utah Museum of Natural History long enough.

"My favorite part are the vertebrates," said Maxim's father, Firas Rassoul-Agha. He teaches math at the University of Utah, where the museum is located, and he visits the museum several times a month.

Next year, the museum is planning to move to a new home at 301 Wakara Way, just south of Red Butte Garden, in Research Park.

The Salt Lake County Council has approved putting a $15 million bond referendum on this November's election ballot to help pay for the museum's current construction project. It would mean an annual property tax increase of $2.40 for 15 years on the average home, worth $265,000.

The total cost of constructing the museum is $102 million. Over the past eight years, the museum has raised $86.5 million for the project. A total of $43 million is in private gifts, and the remainder is a combination of federal and state funding, along with money from federal grants.

The museum is planning to open in its new, more spacious home in November 2011. It has been housed on the south side of Presidents Circle on the campus since 1963, in what used to be the university's library.

"Our building is full, crowded and inaccessible," said museum director Sarah George.

The new museum building will double the size and potentially double the attendance. About 80,000 people attend the museum each year — including 23,000 schoolchildren. Almost two-thirds of the museum's visitors are county residents. The new location boasts 100 parking spaces instead of the 12 available on campus. The new building will also include solar energy elements, to help tone down the museum's carbon footprint.

"We need this. Our children need it. Our economy needs it," said Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, who weighed in on the issue of the museum bond during Salt Lake County Council discussions. "We are not growing the scientists and engineers that our nation needs. And the place to start is exposing these children to quality museums such as this, where they have the interaction and the experience that is going to be second to none."

"The new building will be awesome," said Rosemary Blair, 53, of Park City. She was leading two of her friends' children, Kai, 5, and Koji, 8, through the dinosaur area.

Some of the museum's collections include a fossilized camel from Sandy, a short-faced bear from Kearns, a muskox from the Jordan Narrows — all from the end of the last Ice Age, which was more than 10,000 years ago.

Children can jump up and down on an earthquake machine, check out minerals in a mine and watch volunteers clean and prepare dinosaur bones.

"We're putting him back together," said Ed Lamb, 72, of Murray, who was sweeping particles out of a hadrosaur pelvis bone.

e-mail: astewart@desnews.com