SALT LAKE CITY — City officials are investigating the illegal demolition of a historic chapel on Easter Sunday, questioning the property owner about what happened.
The demolition of the Fifth Ward meetinghouse near 700 South and 300 West in Salt Lake City was not permitted and construction crews fled when confronted by city workers.
"One of our city employees was actually driving by yesterday, early afternoon, and witnessed the demolition happening, called two of our historic preservation planners," said Nick Norris, the Salt Lake City Planner. "Those two were out there rather quickly and confronted the crew that was doing the demolition, asked them if they have permits. They knew they didn’t, they’d already searched and checked. They claim they did. Well, we looked, you don’t and they got in a truck and drove away."
On Monday, FOX 13 News observed city crews on scene investigating. The construction equipment was still parked out front on top of a pile of debris from the illegal demolition. Norris said there were no permits issued for a demolition and at least three ordinances were violated — work without a permit, failure to obtain approval to alter a historic site and failure to get an air quality permit for demolition.
All carry potential fines.
"It’s a violation of our historic preservation regulations," Norris said. "The only way they can remedy this is to essentially restore the damage that they’ve done."
Property records show the site is owned by 300 West Holdings. The registered manager, Jordan Atkin, has not returned messages from FOX 13 News for comment on what happened but posted on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) "We are actively working to figure out what happened."
Atkin told the development-centric website Building Salt Lake that he is the registered manager but neither he nor his company, TAG SLC, own the property. He refused to tell the site who is involved.
"I’m not going to drag my partners through the mud by bringing them into this," Atkin told Building Salt Lake. "It’s incredibly unfortunate."
On the social media platform Threads, Mayor Erin Mendenhall criticized what happened.
In response, the Salt Lake City Council moved up a discussion about increasing the fines for unauthorized work on historic sites. That is now scheduled for Tuesday evening. The council had previously been considering revising its zoning ordinances surrounding historic buildings.
On Monday, people with connections to the historic building stopped by to see the damage. The entrance to the building was torn off.
"It has a long rich history within this community and to have it just be blatantly and cruelly destroyed this way I think is a shame," said Jean Gardner, who told FOX 13 News she was an owner of the building until it was sold in 2018.
The building, which has sat derelict for years, has had many lives. Built as a Latter-day Saint chapel in 1910, it was converted to a concert venue, office space, a goth nightclub and a Tibetan Buddhist temple. It is listed on the national and local register of historic places.
"When we sold it we specifically were looking for someone that wasn’t going to let it be derelict and wasn’t going to tear it down," she said.
Norris said the perception of what happened is not good for the current property owner.
"Just the fact that somebody is a known developer in the city had crews that they hired out demolishing a building on a weekend without permits? To us is enough that it certainly destroys whatever trust the city has in issuing permits to that individual and following through," he said.
