But the City Council isn't sure it can back a new funding plan proposed this week by Mayor Rocky Anderson.
Anderson has asked that the council take $5 million from pending real estate windfalls - including the $1.2 million sale of the Hansen Planetarium building to jeweler O.C. Tanner - and also issue an $8 million sales-tax bond to complete the science, art and cultural center.
Some council members would prefer to issue a $13 million property-tax bond, which, unlike the sales-tax bond, would require voter approval and a tax hike.
And one councilman, mayoral candidate Dave Buhler, doesn't want to see any more city money pay for The Leonardo.
"This is a regional facility. Where's Salt Lake County? Where's the state?" Buhler asked. "The mayor ought to be forging relationships . . . to fill this gap."
More than half - 52 percent - of respondents in the Tribune poll said they supported a $13 million bond to complete The Leonardo. Just under a third were opposed, and 16 percent were undecided.
The poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington, D.C., carries a 4 percent margin of error.
The respondents' backing of The Leonardo project heartens Councilman Carlton Christensen, who prefers putting the issue before voters.
"If that is something that they're willing to say at the ballot box, I feel comfortable" pursuing a property-tax bond, he said.
Christensen opposes a sales-tax bond, which he argues would sap money from parks, streets and other existing projects.
Voters approved a $10 million bond for The Leonardo four years ago, and it was subsequently matched by $10 million in private donations. But rising construction costs and other expenses have turned the $20 million renovation of the former Main Library into a $33 million enterprise.
The City Council plans to discuss Anderson's proposal - and other funding possibilities - at its meeting Tuesday.
"We are the largest [U.S.] city without a science and technology center," Anderson said Thursday. "I fear we don't have enough people on the City Council who have the nerve or the vision to move forward to complete this amazing Leonardo center."
Councilwoman Nancy Saxton also balks at a sales-tax bond, but wants to examine other funding possibilities. Council colleagues Eric Jergensen and Jill Remington Love said Friday they need to learn more about Anderson's proposal.
All said they want to see The Leonardo completed, but first they want to be sure it will be financially viable long term. Museum planners submitted the project's business plan to the council this week for review.
"We'll look at that and we will carefully move forward," Jergensen said. "The bottom line is what is the best way to get The Leonardo up and running?"
rwinters@sltrib.com
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* CHRISTOPHER SMART contributed to this story.
Development adviser named
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson has selected an acting senior adviser for economic development. Edward Butterfield, the city's small-business and economic-development manager since 2003, steps into the new post after helping to expand the Buy Local First organization and assisting with the launch of the Sunday People's Market in Jordan Park. Butterfield has a bachelor's degree in finance and economics from Utah State University. He replaces Alison McFarlane, who is leaving the mayor's staff to be director of institutional marketing and communications at Salt Lake Community College.
