Salt Lake leaders and environmentalists are celebrating the preservation of "one of the largest underdeveloped natural open spaces in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area."

After three years of working to secure the land, a deal to preserve the Wasatch Hollow Natural Open Space area, 5.5 acres near 1600 East and 1750 South, was finalized Wednesday morning, said Salt Lake City Councilman JT Martin.

"It's an incredible event," said Martin, who represents the area. "There's been a lot of emotions — both good and bad. It has been a struggle from the get-go. We thought we had lost it many times."

While some neighbors see the deal as a threat to property values, Martin sees it as a chance to save the last open space in his district while cleaning up a secluded area that has been littered with beer cans and plagued by suspicious activities.

"Kids have been able to go in there and have free rein," he said. "As this becomes property of Salt Lake City, we now can get police in there on a regular basis and start cleaning it up.

"This was threatened on many occasions to be a condominium or townhome development," Martin added. "This is it for my district. There are no more opportunities to assemble this kind of land for open space."

Martin credited a number of partners in finalizing the deal, including Salt Lake County, Utah Open Lands and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which donated 3.5 acres of land to the project. Salt Lake County contributed $427,000 and will hold a conservation easement on the land. Salt Lake City contributed $950,000 and will hold the fee title.

"This land, this riparian corridor that has tremendous cultural, historic and ecological value, is going to forever be protected," said Wendy Fisher, executive director of Utah Open Lands.

The area will remain off-limits to the public until it has been cleaned up and community stakeholders can decide what type of uses the area should support.

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