This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
There is a contingent of folks living in the Salt Lake Valley and its peripheries who want to be in the Broadway loop. They are tired of first-run tours of blockbuster musicals such as "The Lion King" and "Wicked" leapfrogging over Salt Lake City on their way west.
Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker and developers have these potential patrons in mind for a 2,500-seat performing arts center at 135 S. Main St. In addition to between 80 and 104 touring performances each year, they say the playhouse would provide a venue for 40 other concerts and shows, including special performances of Salt Lake's own Utah Symphony/Utah Opera and Ballet West.
Planners expect to attract between 258,000 and 276,000 patrons each year to 138 to 175 annual performance days.
That's heady stuff for Utahns whose pioneer heritage includes a love for the performing arts. Just 14 years after their arrival, the Mormon settlers opened the Salt Lake Theatre at State Street and 100 South, the largest and most-adorned structure in the outpost of just 12,000 people.
The new arts center will rightly continue that tradition and would complement the city's other performance halls, the Capitol Theatre, Rose Wagner and Abravanel Hall.
If plans to house a film center in the Utah Theatre across Main Street come to fruition, it, too, would boost the downtown array of cultural venues. The performing arts center would undoubtedly compete with Pioneer Memorial Theatre and Kingsbury Hall, both on the University of Utah campus. We can only hope community support continues for those long-standing city cultural icons as well.
The Capitol Theatre space and location aren't ideal for touring shows, and as host to the local arts companies, its schedule does not allow bookings years in advance. No existing venue is large enough to allow producers of big shows to make a go of it.
While Becker and the GTS Development Team aren't saying specifically how they plan to finance the project, a large portion of the $88 million to $98 million will have to come in the form of a bond repaid with taxes. We reserve judgment on that until the details are forthcoming.
This is the right location for the project, which could include a black-box rehearsal space, coveted by arts groups. The LDS Church owns the property and has stipulated that the development should include an office tower on the corner of 100 South and Main, complementing the church's City Creek Center to the north.
The new performing arts center is an old idea whose time has come — again.