Font ResizeMidvale » Almost 70 years ago, it opened as the building to serve as the first Salt Lake County government library.
The building, 655 W. Center St., was later converted in 1977 into the current home of Midvale City Hall -- which underwent a $1 million renovation project seven years ago.
Now, city leaders are discussing plans to build a new $13 million City Hall campus that would include a fire station, Justice Court, community center and meetings rooms.
The two-story, multi-use building would be built on the 6-acre Dahl Field at 7500 South and 700 West.
A new City Hall is needed because Midvale is out of space, said City Manager Kane Loader. (The city almost doubled in size in 1998 when it annexed some 14,000 residents. Today, roughly 30,000 people call Midvale home, he said.)
"We're cramming people into offices," Loader said. "I can't add one more person here."
The problem? There's no money to build a new City Hall, Loader said. Working with such a tight budget, he said there's no way the city could afford such a project.
"The time is not right to raise taxes to build a building," Loader said.
Still, the City Council unanimously approved the Midvale facilities master plan last week in hopes of eventually making it a reality over the next few years, Loader said.
"It goes into the vault until we get the money," he said.
Councilman Wayne Sharp
Sharp also said he has concerns that by creating space on the campus for Community Building Community -- an agency overseen by the city but funded through grants to provide services for mostly immigrants and refugees -- it will continue to attract more families with "very, very low incomes" to move to Midvale.
"I don't like to promote people becoming dependent on other people," he said in a phone interview.
In 2007, Midvale paid $30,000 to JRCA Architects, based in Salt Lake City, to evaluate the needs of the city and develop a facilities master plan. The city then paid the company $16,000 this year to update the plan, Loader said.
Due to changes in baseball field rules, Dahl Field can only be used for kids 12-years old and younger, Loader said. City officials plan to include a new baseball field as part of the city's growing west side development, he said.
To get started on the master plan, the city plans to apply for federal grants to help pay for a new $5 million fire station on the campus, Loader said. The new station is needed to replace Fire Station No. 21, a "very old building" built in the 1960s, at 7683 S. Holden St., he said.
The city plans to receive some $2 million in federal funding and contribute about $3 million in city money, Loader said.
