Salt Lake County welcomes Holding's offer

Salt Lake County officials say they're happy to entertain Utah billionaire Earl Holding's offer of a free downtown site near his hotels for a new convention center alongside the standing proposition of constructing a new, mega-hotel near the Salt Palace.

Both ideas seek to attract more convention business to Salt Lake City by putting a large-scale accommodation facility in close proximity to a convention venue — a model that has been successful in other Western cities using a public-private financing scheme.

Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon said Wednesday that the proposition adds another voice, and another possibility, for the county's newly formed convention hotel headquarters advisory committee to evaluate.

"It is certainly something we can discuss in the conversation," Corroon said. "We're trying to look at this topic from different angles, and (Holding's) offer … is a valid one."

Salt Lake County Council Chairman Joe Hatch said he was surprised to hear that the property, which has been unsuccessfully pursued by a variety of different agencies for different uses during the past decade, was being offered by Holding.

"It is a total change for (Holding)," Hatch said. "In the past, they wanted to be the developer and do the work on their own time frame, but … this offer is definitely something that should be out there for discussion."

Hatch said he wanted to hear more details on the idea, specifically questioning whether the development on Holding's property would be a facility complementary to the Salt Palace, or a replacement.

"My initial gut reaction to the idea is why would we devalue the tremendous investment the public has made in our current facility," Hatch said. "Clearly, though, it does accomplish the same goal as the hotel idea … a convention hotel right next door to a convention center."

The concept of siting sizeable (1,000 room-plus) hotels near convention centers — and accomplishing the goal with hefty input of taxpayer dollars, usually in the form of municipal bonds — has been accomplished in recent years in Phoenix, Denver, Baltimore and Austin, Texas, with another project under way in Dallas.

The head of Denver's convention and visitors' bureau said their project — a convention center expansion and construction of a 1,100-room Hyatt Hotel completed in 2005 — has been a hit.