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A Utah Supreme Court ruling means lights out for a flashy Murray strip club.
Justices ruled Friday morning that Intermountain Medical Center could give its controversial strip-club tenant the boot after Southern Exposure submitted late rent payments and breached a lease agreement 10 years ago. A jubilant Intermountain Medical Center spokesman Jess Gomez said Friday that the "fairly straightforward" landlord-tenant issue dragged on far too long.
An Intermountain attorney said Friday that she had not yet read the ruling, and attorneys for Southern Exposure's D & K Management did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The high court upheld an earlier district-court ruling in the case that favored Intermountain, but it reversed a decision that would have forced the strip club to pay the medical giant's attorney fees.
Murray's towering new half-billion-dollar medical center plans to take the Southern Exposure property so it can expand its campus along its eastern border just off State Street at 5100 South.
The medical center has not yet solidified plans for that area, but they could include parking, a building, landscaping and a walking path that encompasses the entire medical campus.
"There's a great need for additional parking," said Gomez. "This is a very busy campus."
Gomez stressed that the case was simply a property dispute and had nothing to do with morals or the sexual nature of the strip club.
"The tenant violated the lease contract, and as property owners, we have the right to seek eviction if that happens," he said.
Gomez has said in past interviews the medical center would have allowed the club to finish its lease if it had paid rent on time.
Southern Exposure had leased the space from Medical Plaza 9400 back in 1994, when the area was a shopping center that once include a state liquor store. Its initial term was five years - set to expire in 1999 - with three five-year renewal options.
But in January 1998, Intermountain purchased the center and introduced its plans to build its state-of-the-art medical campus. Attorneys have pointed out that the strip mall was being demolished as the medical campus developed, making it clear that Intermountain did not want to be a landlord.