In her first State of the City speech, South Salt Lake Mayor Cherie Wood unveiled a new logo and "City on the Move" brand" as well as an aggressive goal to buy Granite High and convert it into a "recreational megaplex."

"We have heard your voices," Wood said Thursday when referencing the mothballed high school. "You will help us build a facility that will be crucial in our crusade to create a new South Salt Lake."

Her vision for the schoolhouse at 501 E. 3900 South: A combination rec center-concert hall with spruced-up space for city business. Wood has assembled a team of public officials and private consultants to find a creative way to finance the buy, which has been pledged before by the suburb, to no avail.

"It had been talked about in the past as maybe a dream," said Assistant Mayor Charee Peck. "Now it's serious."

Wood also sounded serious about cleaning up the image of the former "City of Industry." She promised enhanced code enforcement, beautification along State Street, and decorative lighting and other improvements along the Interstate 80 offramps.

In addition, Wood repeated the city's push to establish a "destination retail center and an upscale urban neighborhood" just south of 2100 South. The city has designated redevelopment areas for "Market Station" -- between State and Main streets from 2100 South to 2300 South -- and for the patch of land west of it, stretching to the Central Pointe TRAX station.

For the first time in two decades, the mayor noted, South Salt Lake has a director of economic development.

Saddled with a reputation for having an abundance of bars, property crime and industrial blight, Wood campaigned on a pledge to upgrade the suburb's vitality.

"We will not succumb to the naysayers," she said Thursday.

The mayor teased that Utah Career College's largest campus is coming to South Salt Lake in October. She praised the school for offering classes in high-demand technology.

The city's first new logo since 1938: "South Salt Lake, City on the Move," features modern lines surrounding a single "S."

If Wood is successful in retooling Granite, that moniker could be stamped all over the building as a real symbol of progress.

"Candidly," Wood said, "I refuse to pull down the window shade on this one."