Beginning Monday, customers must submit permit applications at a central office in the City-County Building at 451 S. State St., said Orion Goff, director of the city's building services and business licensing offices.

"The impetus for the change is that there are basically six different city departments that have to do plan reviews before we issue building permits," Goff said Friday. "Those six agencies are not housed in one building . . . customers, in order to get permits, were being bounced around the city."

John McEntire, chief financial officer of Salt Lake-based Okland Construction, said the new procedure is a welcome change from the past.

"Absolutely, it will be helpful, and it's something that should have been done a long time ago," McEntire said. "One location, one office is a great idea and we applaud it."

The building services office in the City-County Building has been remodeled to make space for plan reviewers attached to the planning and zoning and fire departments, as well as the building service office.

After signing in on touch-screen computers, customers will be directed to representatives of the three departments. Their applications also will be hand-delivered to reviewers at the city's engineering, public utilities and transportation departments whose offices are still off-site.

Instead of doing business across a long counter that used to be in the room, customers will sit with plan reviewers in cubicles.

The procedure also has an online component. Customers will be able to track the progress of their applications through their Internet browsers.

"When word gets out that we have a one-stop counter and how responsible and efficient all of this is, that's enormously important, because time is money for these businesses," Mayor Rocky Anderson said. "The greatest complaint for a lot of developers, a lot of business owners and managers, has to do with the hassles of dealing with city government."

City Council appropriated $98,000 to cover the cost of centralizing the application process. Another $1.7 million has been appropriated to buy software that will streamline the process further. The software is expected to be installed in about seven months.

Goff said the revenue the city earns from granting permits will pay for the improvements.