Salt Lake City leaders are spit-balling ideas on what to do with their newly purchased Utah Theater -- both short-term and long -- in the spirit of activating Main Street.

The City Council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency on Tuesday, elected to launch a work group to consider whether to invite temporary tenants -- think coffee huts or artist studios -- or to tackle a massive rebuild of the theater and adjoining retail space from 144 to 156 South Main St.

The capital still anticipates making the theater the future home of the Salt Lake City Film Center -- complete with support space for Capitol Theatre -- likely funded and run by Salt Lake County. But multiple RDA members favor the idea of preparing the 15,000 square feet of retail space in hopes of securing short-term commercial tenants.

"It could be easily designed as a pretty flexible space, especially with parking under it," Councilman Soren Simonsen said. He suggested an exterior passageway be preserved but spruced up to resemble something like Post Alley in Seattle.

Councilman Van Turner, who recently toured the cavernous and severely compromised theater space, says most residents likely don't know what's there.

"I was totally blown away by the square footage," he said. "In the short term, there's a huge opportunity for retail. The Mayflower restaurant's beautiful -- totally a treasure in there."

A city report says the Mayflower and former Daynes Music store are in reasonably good condition, while the other two non-theater spaces would require larger investments to prepare them for occupancy. The RDA is struggling to fill its small retail spaces on Gallivan Avenue, roughly a block away.

"We're interested in seeing the most activity for the amount of money we can spend," said Mayor Ralph Becker, adding nothing is yet budgeted.

In early January, the RDA closed on the purchase of the Utah Theater for $5.5 million. RDA Executive Director D.J. Baxter says another "wild hair" option is to demolish the theater and construct a new building with leasable space on its footprint. "It would provide the opportunity to build whatever facade you wanted," he said.

New Councilman Stan Penfold said it is "critical" to him to preserve the theater's feel, including restoring some semblance of the original facade.

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