Kosmo the Kosmoceratops could be moving from the Granary District

A popular Utah dinosaur could be moving farther west from Salt Lake City’s Granary District.

Kosmo, a 20-foot steel representation of Utah’s ancient Kosmoceratops richardsoni species, needs a new home as his perch on the southeast corner of 500 West and 700 South is prepared for development.

A new roundabout five blocks west, at 1000 West and 700 South in Poplar Grove, may make for a nice abode.

“We’re not going to get kicked off immediately, but it would be good to have a good place,” artist Garth Franklin told the Poplar Grove Community Council in May. “And that traffic circle and that location would be really cool for Kosmo and hopefully for everyone living around there.”

Kosmo was installed in the Granary District just last summer as a part of the city’s Open Streets initiative, which closes some streets to cars on select summer evenings. Someday, Franklin hopes to bring Kosmo back to a future roundabout at 500 West and 700 South, but that project won’t be done for a while.

Franklin and artistic partner Alec Gonos, of Iron Mesa Studio, wanted Kosmo to be a mascot for the growing Granary area and hoped to pay homage to a local species — unlike 9th and 9th’s colorful whale, officially titled Out of the Blue. The fossils that would later be named Kosmoceratops were discovered in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

Franklin also used materials scavenged from old buildings in the neighborhood in Kosmo’s construction. Plants grow out from inside the steel dinosaur, a nod to the lush vegetation that blanketed this swampy part of the world about 76 million years ago.

Now, Franklin and the Poplar Grove Community Council are eyeing the west-side neighborhood as a temporary place for Kosmo.

The traffic circle was requested by neighbors and installed last year as a way to slow down cars. The intersection also now boasts raised crosswalks, better lighting and new benches. Franklin told the council that the roundabout is the right size and scale to host Kosmo.

Attendees at the May meeting seemed to be mostly on board with the idea of hosting the dinosaur, even just temporarily. Community Council member Karen Potts told Franklin and Gonos that many in Poplar Grove would eventually like to see artwork there celebrating the neighborhood’s wandering peacocks. Funding, however, still needs to be secured for that project.

After the May presentation on Kosmo, residents submitted an application for one of Salt Lake City’s Love Your Block grants, small pots of money that city officials make available for citizen-led neighborhood improvement projects.

“We’re really hopeful that it will go through,” Potts said. “And we’re hoping that maybe, if that goes through and we get the money, we could do the whole move of Kosmo.”

Franklin said a couple other pieces have to fall into place to move the artwork. An engineer will have to inspect and sign off on Kosmo’s stability, and the sculpture will have to be donated to the city so it can be placed on public property. If the Love Your Block grant is approved, Franklin hopes to move Kosmo sometime in the fall.

The city expects to make decisions on Love Your Block grant applications this month.