This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Unity Center was the balm to ease Salt Lake City into giving up public access on the LDS Church's Main Street Plaza.
Those public rights are long gone. But the center has yet to get off the ground.
The facility, slated for the west-side Glendale neighborÂhood, was supposed to open at the end of this year, but has been delayed six months. And some community leaders fear that once built, it could stand vacant. The city has little money to provide services and has yet to find partners.
"It sounds to me like the city is going to be sitting with an empty building and basically hoping and praying someone will come along," said Glendale Community Council Vice President Jay Ingleby, who has long opposed plans for the Sorenson Unity Center.
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson calls the fears unfounded. He said the project is complicated.
"Believe me, any delays are a greater frustration for us," he said Friday. "We're very intent on bringing a great facility."
The delay also is exposing a growing rift between the mayor and the Alliance for Unity - a group Anderson co-created. The Unity Center, at 1385 S. 900 West, has become an albatross for the alliance, whose name and money backed the city's swap of the public easement through Main Street Plaza.
That swap gave the LDS Church full control of its property between North Temple and South Temple.
Though they know a center will be built, Alliance Director Alexander Morrison said members are concerned - including the alliance's LDS Church representative, Elder M. Russell Ballard - that they haven't seen a business plan, architectural drawings or list of tenants.
"There's a question of whether you're being faithful to the donors and faithful to the community," said Morrison, a former LDS Church general authority.
"The mayor just goes ballistic when you raise this issue. We're not trying to fight with the mayor or fight with anybody. We have an obligation to our donors and the community, both of whom were led to believe we'd have a building. Where is the building?"
Anderson says the alliance knows the reason for the lag: It has taken longer than expected to buy two homes sandwiched between the Unity land and the existing Sorenson Multi-Cultural Center. In fact, the LDS Church at one time tried to buy the property but failed. The city, after long negotiations, recently closed on that property - purchased by billionaire James Sorenson - and it now can move forward.
"It's ironic that somebody affiliated with the Alliance for Unity would simply, through his complaining, create such a sense of disunity and divisiveness," Anderson said. "He has not been helpful."
The deal among Anderson, the church and the Alliance was hammered out over a weekend in December 2002. The city agreed to sell its easement to the church in exchange for several things, including 2 acres and $250,000. The Alliance added $3.75 million.
Sorenson kicked in land and money totaling $1 million.
The city has been searching for partners, but this week it decided to move forward without Guadalupe School, which was considering building a new elementary school at the center. The school did not have a fund-raising plan, and Anderson said he plans to meet with Guadalupe representatives to discuss options.
Neighboring residents have demanded the new center include health and fitness facilities.
But Anderson said he doesn't know if the center will open with such a feature and is working to get one through Salt Lake County.
"If we can do the rest [a theater, lobby and classrooms] and line up a health-and-fitness center down the road, that might be the best approach."
Partners to run programs aren't lined up, either. The city now is trying to lure them by offering to pay some of the center's operating costs, even though the mayor's office initially assured the community that the city wouldn't pay such expenses.
"Situations change all the time," Anderson said. "We're not building this to have an empty building."
The issue has become a point of frustration for residents who didn't want the city to sell off public access rights in the first place.
"Where is it?" asked Penny Breiman, whose church, the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, was part of a group that sued the city over the easement swap. The Denver-based U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has taken the case under advisement.
"We've got nothing so far," she said.