Booming Salt Lake City gears up for 2002 Winter Olympics

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Nov 14, 1997 by Verne Kopytoff N.Y. Times News Service

SALT LAKE CITY -- Until a few decades ago, the two dozen or so cities nestled between the flanks of the Wasatch Mountains and shore of the Great Salt Lake subsisted heavily on farming and the area's natural bounty of minerals and timber.

Development in Salt Lake City reflected this reliable but mild economy: a sleepy downtown filled with low-rise storefronts -- some built of brick by early Mormon settlers -- and suburbs with more land devoted to pastures than housing tracts.

But now the area finds itself in an unfamiliar position at the center of attention as host of the Winter Olympics in 2002, and preparations for it are accelerating what is already one of the fastest growing local economies in the country. Not since the silver rush in the 1880s that brought saloons and prospectors' cabins to the surrounding mountain towns has this area been so transformed, this time with office towers, bobsled courses, ice rinks, tract homes and business parks. "Our economy is now broader and more stable than it was 30 years ago," said Brian Hatch, deputy mayor of Salt Lake City. "Now we have more service businesses, more tourism, more conventions and more warehousing since we are at a crossroads of the West." While Olympics construction represents only a fraction of the area's 5 percent annual job growth rate over the last few years, it is at the forefront of nearly every local resident's mind. Outsiders who ask about development in the state typically get a gloating smile followed by a recitation of the dozen or so Olympic venues that have been built or are in various stages of construction and planning. Though the area is rich in ski resorts, about half of the sports facilities and infrastructure for the games must be built from scratch at a cost of nearly $1 billion, according to Utah's Office of Planning and Budget. So that the cost of construction is not too burdensome on one entity, most development is being financed by partnerships between the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee and government entities and private companies. Among the largest projects is a 10,500-seat arena, financed with $7 million from the Olympic Committee and $46 million from the City of West Valley, where the completed arena is situated. During the games, the venue will accommodate short-track speed-skating races and preliminary ice hockey matches (the finals will be in the Delta Center, home of the Utah Jazz basketball team). Otherwise, it will be used as a concert hall and as a home for the Utah Grizzlies, an International League hockey team that leases the arena for its matches. Salt Lake City also lacked a place to house nearly 3,500 athletes and an adequate location for the opening and closing ceremonies. The Olympic Committee turned to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to expand the school's football stadium from 32,000 seats to 50,000, and to build new student dormitories to serve as an athletes' village during the games. The university will pay about $98 million of the total $110 million it will take to complete the two projects. Part of the construction for the Winter Games began even before Salt Lake City was named as Olympic host. The construction was part of the effort to win designation from the International Olympic Committee, which passed over Utah for the 1998 games in favor of Nagano, Japan. The state built the basics of a $59 million winter sports park with a bobsled course, luge course, Nordic combined tracks, several ski jumps, and a speed-skating oval located off-site, funded by a small increase in the state sales tax that voters approved in 1988. Once the games are over, the Olympic Committee will reimburse Utah for that $59 million, plus $40 million for a maintenance fund. Civic leaders hope that the park and other facilities like the ice rinks will become a training ground for winter sports competitors, much as Colorado Springs, Colo., has become a home to the American summer sports program. "If you go to Squaw Valley, which hosted the Olympics in the 1960s, there is virtually nothing left," said David Winder, executive director of Utah's office of Community and Economic Development. "We want virtually every facility built for the Olympics this time to have a lasting effect on the city." Even without the Olympics, the Salt Lake City area, population 1.2 million, is in the midst of an unprecedented construction spree that reflects the prosperity of the local economy and the area's relatively new role as a regional corporate headquarters. In downtown Salt Lake City, at least half a dozen cranes swing overhead on several projects, that when finished, will transform the skyline from its gap-toothed appearance of the past. For example, American Stores, the supermarket chain, is building a 24-story, gray and turquoise glass edifice to serve as its main office. Nearby, the Mormon Church, which is based in Salt Lake City, is erecting an 18-story tower to lease as office space. One of the area's largest landowners and real estate developers, the Mormon Church has recently completed a 330-unit brick apartment complex downtown and has started laying the foundation for a 20,000- seat assembly hall that is expected to cost $240 million. The church's high birth rate and its growing membership has rendered the old assembly hall too small. Another source of downtown construction is government, which has outgrown some of its 1960s-era buildings. Workers are finishing the interior of a new $60 million state courthouse, and a federal courthouse a few blocks away is in the design stage. Though Salt Lake City has a wealth of hotel rooms, many real estate experts have predicted that several more hotels will be built downtown to capitalize on the Olympics. So far, these predictions have been only partly realized with a $185 million expansion under way at the Little America hotel and an announcement that developers will begin work on a 350-room Crown Plaza Hotel sometime this winter. One part of downtown that has yet to be affected by development is on the west side, a depressed warehouse district that is literally on the other side of the railroad tracks. Civic leaders hope that it will become an entertainment area, but for now a hulking train depot, a rail yard and dozens of brick buildings sit decrepit, much of them deserted among the weeds. Outside of Salt Lake City, in the sprawling bedroom communities nearby, economic growth has led to the development of countless distribution centers, business parks, and strip malls. Long reputed to have bargain-priced housing, the Salt Lake City area's steady population growth of roughly 2 percent since 1990 has pushed the median price of a home upward in recent years by over 10 percent annually to $127,000 in 1997, compared with the national median of $123,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. In suburbs like South Jordan, Draper and Sandy, brick homes are being built three to an acre in developments that rise on former farmland. In 1996, housing starts for single family homes totaled 8,800 in the area, according to the Census Bureau. But with this growth comes some notable problems. Among those commonly mentioned is a dearth of moderate-income housing, poor city planning and some notoriously congested highways -- a situation that is being addressed with a $2 billion program to expand Interstate 15 and build a commuter and light-rail system that is scheduled to be completed before the Olympics. "Locals sometimes complain that we are getting too big," said Jaren L. Davis, president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors. "But we are still a small city if you compare us on a national scale."