Salt Lake City wants more time and money to finish the Sorenson Unity Center, slated for the city's west-side Glendale neighborhood. It was once scheduled to open this winter. Then the opening was moved to September 2006. Now, it is set to open December 2006.

And now that the city has more solid plans for the building, city officials say they need another $400,000 to pay for it.

Mayor Rocky Anderson has informally requested the money from the Alliance for Unity - a group of religious leaders and some millionaires - which has already gathered millions for the center.

The request was made Monday, the same day the federal appeals court validated the city's controversial deal to sell its Main Street Plaza easement. In exchange, the city received $4 million from the alliance, $1.5 million in land and money from billionaire James Sorenson and about two acres in Glendale from the LDS Church for the center.

The alliance's executive director, Alexander Morrison, said the group probably won't pony up for more because it already fulfilled its obligation.

Morrison said none of the alliance members at the Monday meeting - including leaders of the LDS, Roman Catholic, Episcopal and Calvary Baptist churches - was enthusiastic.

"I didn't see anybody standing up saying, 'Hallelujah! Can't we give more?' "

But Anderson, who co-founded the alliance, wants a formal vote and said Morrison shouldn't be speaking for the alliance without one.

Without the $400,000, the city would scale back the center, potentially cutting some classrooms or the drop-in child-care center. Anderson doesn't plan to use city funds to fill the gap. Already, the city will subsidize the operation of the center by $131,000 a year, going against promises initially made that the center would fund itself.

Mike Harman, chairman of the Poplar Grove Community Council, said west-siders should have a say in what stays or goes if the center is scaled back.

"It seems like the city bit off more than they could chew in what they wanted to accomplish there. People I've talked to are skeptical if anything will ever get built."

The Alliance for Unity actually raised more than $4 million for the center. Morrison refused to say how much more. But that money is being spent on other projects.

Morrison doesn't expect the extra money to be shifted back to the center. "We fulfilled 100 percent of our obligations. As far as we're concerned, that's the end of it."

Rick Graham, in charge of the Unity Center project as director of the city's Public Services Department, said costs jumped because the city added some space to accommodate more classrooms for education courses, for dental services and for fitness and health programs.

And any delays in construction increases the project price tag. This season, construction costs have come in over projections for many other city projects.

"If we have to shrink the building a bit, we will do that," Graham said. "We will not be shortchanging the public in terms of the programming they expected."

While Morrison has expressed frustration in the past that the center is taking so long to build, he wasn't critical Tuesday.

"They're coming along. We think we need to move on. The plaza episode is dead. Let's get the building built and get it filled and get on with doing some good in the community."

hmay@sltrib.com

No word on possible appeal of Plaza ruling

Still no word on whether the American Civil Liberties Union will appeal this week's 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on the LDS Church's Main Street Plaza. A three-judge panel sided against the ACLU, which wanted the court to rule that the plaza was a public forum and open to free speech.

ACLU officials said they had to talk to their four plaintiffs. The plaintiffs, in turn, said an appeal was up to the ACLU.

At least one plaintiff, the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, might bow out if the ACLU does appeal. The Rev. Tom Goldsmith said his Unitarian congregation would vote on the matter, and he suspects they would vote no.

"Nobody's up in arms. I haven't received calls of dismay," he said. "The courts have spoken. It was a 3-0 decision."

Andrea Moore-Emmett, with the Utah National Organization for Women, figures an appeal would be pointless.

"The climate that we're living in gives all the power to religion and churches. It's futile in getting results to get the plaza back for free speech," she said. Still, "it's always something that's worth fighting for. It's freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is worth fighting for."

Kurt Van Gorden, with the Utah Gospel Mission, said he's willing to keep fighting. "There are issues we must look at with the Mormon Church dealing with the city." And Lee Siegel said he hopes the ACLU will continue fighting.

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson predicts the organization won't. "They don't have a case. They want it to go away as badly as everybody else."

- Heather May