SALT LAKE CITY — The Smith Entertainment Group detailed more of its plans for downtown, including the fate of Abravanel Hall and the Salt Palace.
In a briefing before the Salt Lake City Council on Tuesday, the new owners of the National Hockey League team formerly known as the Arizona Coyotes spoke about their vision for the area. The Smith Entertainment Group is seeking a .5% sales tax increase to pay for some of the development.
"We refer to this as a sports, entertainment, culture and convention district," said Mike Maughan, a principal in SEG. "I think there has been some — too much conversation, probably — about a sports and entertainment district."
The Smith Entertainment Group is proposing to take $900 million to help remodel the Delta Center to accommodate both an NHL team and the Utah Jazz. But the Delta Center would then be a funnel toward a new vision of downtown, where discussions with the International Olympic Committee are under way about making the district the new Medals Plaza. SEG committed it would invest about $3 billion of its own money into the district.
Plans for the downtown area have been accelerated since billionaire team owners Ryan and Ashley Smith inherited the former Coyotes team. (In fact, they plan to launch an online survey — using the Smiths' company Qualtrics, of course — to pick a new team name.) But their ideas have caused some community concerns. Dozens of art lovers showed up worried that Abravanel Hall and Utah's Museum of Contemporary Art will be demolished in the plans. An online petition specifically to save Abravanel Hall has already generated thousands of signatures.
Asked directly about Abravanel Hall's future, Maughan told FOX 13 News: "SEG would love to see Abravanel Hall stay on the site."
But Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson said the site of the Utah Symphony and other concerts is aging and in need of hundreds of millions of dollars in improvements. Salt Lake County owns Abravanel Hall and the Salt Palace.
"I personally have a great love of the venue. It’s very special but we also have to look at the future. We have to look at the hall itself," she said.
The comments did not leave some affiliated with the Utah Symphony confident.
"I felt like they just added more flowery language in an attempt to appease us," Jack Clark with the Utah Youth Symphony told FOX 13 News afterward.
The presentation on Tuesday also included a desire to preserve JapanTown, the original site of the downtown district, which has been bulldozed in the past. Those conversations are ongoing, said members of Utah's Japanese-American community.
"They are supporting keeping what we have, but hoping that sometime we can do some restoration of what was taken," said Jani Iwamoto, a former state senator who now leads the Japanese Community Preservation Committee.
Salt Lake City Council members expressed a desire to maintain an ongoing dialogue. The Smith Entertainment Group vowed to be transparent about its plans, soliciting community feedback and keeping people up to date on their plans.
Asked about the impacts to both Abravanel Hall and JapanTown, Salt Lake City Council Chair Victoria Petro said: "Anytime the community is nervous, I get nervous with them. But there are commitments universally to those organizations and those participants. No one is going to let them go anywhere in the downtown core."
The city council will hold a public hearing on May 21 specifically about SEG's plans. A vote on whether to enact a .5% sales tax increase will happen in July. But as SEG pointed out, the Delta Center is a massive economic engine for Salt Lake City itself, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for the local economy every year.
"This is the right thing. NHL needs to be downtown. The Utah Jazz need to stay downtown," said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. "The path to get there is what we’re working on right now."
