Tonight: Public weighs in on Becker’s Broadway bid
Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker’s bid for a $100 million, 2,500-seat “Broadway-style” theater known as the Utah Performing Arts Center (UPAC) has proved as resilient as it is controversial.
City boosters, including the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce, praise it not only as a economic boost to a languishing block of downtown, but also as the last piece of a decades-old master plan for cultural facilities. Theater professionals who staff the valley’s myriad theater companies, meanwhile, charge it will prove a costly albatross if built.
Taxpaying members of the public will have their first say on this issue, 7 p.m. tonight in the chambers of the City & County Building. The hearing is prelude to a resolution vote by council members early next month to aside up to $18 million in tax revenue for construction of the facility. The public is also invited to listen to a discussion earlier in the day, 2 p.m., prior to the public forum.
With plans to use funds that will become available when bonds from the EnergySolutions Arena are paid off in 2015, plus a portion of property tax and school district revenues in the mix, this hearing could well determine whether or not the show goes on for Becker’s showcase project.
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