Those are the mass-produced, three-course meals served - often cold - by a cadre of rushed waiters. But at the new center north of the Layton Hills Mall, organizers plan to keep a standing buffet all day long, offering conference participants a wider selection of food - when they want it.
"Breakfast, lunch and dinner selections will be rotated throughout the day," says Scott Lunt, general manager of the 41,000-square-foot facility and adjoining Hilton Garden Hotel. "People will be able to take a break and sit in the dining area, cafeteria style, or they can return to the conference room and enjoy the meal with the other conferees."
Of course, the conferees might find themselves behind a Thunderbird linebacker while standing in line at the buffet table.
The Southern Utah University football team will be one of the first groups to hold an event at the new center, Lunt says.
The SUU gridders' strategy session, scheduled for Sept. 2-3, is one of about 70 programs to book the building. So far, other events include scrapbook shows and weddings.
Many of the conferences are held by the military contractors and officials at nearby Hill Air Force Base.
Hanging on to those repeat visitors is what persuaded county officials to build a conference center in Layton, says Wilf Sommerkorn, Davis County's economic-development director. Officials project that the cost of operating the new center to run at about $4.6 million. Feasibility studies showed the center would be operating in the black in three years, raking in an estimated $500,000 in additional sales taxes for the county.
"We had the high schools or the fairground, but if you wanted a place to hold a conference or sit-down dinner and a place to stay overnight, there really wasn't anything like that in Davis County," Sommerkorn says.
The Davis County Republican Party, for instance, had to hold its annual fund-raising gala at a hotel in Weber County in recent years. Convention officials are planning to show off the new Davis County center Sept. 9, with a grand-opening gala, featuring a $100-a-plate dinner and concert by Peabo Bryson, whose hits include duets on Disney theme songs "Beauty and the Beast" and "A Whole New World."
In the meantime, Lunt and his staff are busy gussying up the 147-room hotel, opening a Starbucks and arranging the pastries, microwave popcorn, shampoo, aspirin and other quick-stop needs of patrons using the extended-stay lodge.
The building will feature a weather theme after Davis County Commission Chairman Dannie McConkie suggested putting a weather tower out front that would change colors - depending on the forecast - similar to the tower on the Walker Bank Building in downtown Salt Lake City.
Officials ran with that idea. Guests will book their event in the Meridian, Zephyr and Aurora rooms. Since the tower can be seen from Interstate 15, KSL TV Channel 5 will use the center as a site for one of its Doppler radar stations and weatherman Mark Eubank, a Davis County resident, will emcee the grand opening.
Lunt says many of the hotel rooms are booked on a long-term basis by companies doing business with Hill Air Force Base and will have various employees passing through regularly.
"One of my favorite things about the center is the garden plaza," he says.
"It kind of breaks up the monotony that people who travel for a lot of meetings feel. And we are close enough to a mall and these other restaurants that I'm confident people will really enjoy coming here."
The center, which has been in the planning stages for the past decade or so, still has its critics.
"It's a risk for a businessman - not [one] the county should be taking with our tax money," says Farmington resident Carlton Bergen, who has attended several county tax hearings in recent years. "It would surprise me if I ever had a reason to set foot inside of there."
lorib@sltrib.com
