Most Significant Events in Salt Lake City 1984-2010 

Q: Besides the Olympics, what is the most significant thing to happen to Salt Lake City in the past 25 years? Or, how do you see the city changing the next quarter century? (To weigh in with your own thoughts on the past quarter century, comment below.)

Paul Rolly, Salt Lake Tribune columnist

“TRAX, Salt Palace expansion and renovation, the development of The Gateway shopping center and the massive restructuring of the traditional downtown business district near the Salt Lake Temple being conducted by the LDS Church. TRAX has brought Salt Lake City into the 21st century in mass transit. Soon, there will be more east-west legs expanding the quick and efficient transportation system into further subdivisions throughout Salt Lake County. The most significant leg will be the one connecting the Salt Lake City hub to the Salt Lake City International Airport. That, along with the new and improved Salt Palace convention center, should vastly enhance the city’s reputation as a tourism and convention site. The Gateway replaced what had been a run-down eyesore on the west side of the city’s business district, and the new LDS project, which will exist just to the east of Gateway, should make the city a vibrant place to hang around, shop and party. The Utah Legislature’s recent action eliminating the need to buy memberships to each drinking establishment also is beneficial to the city’s tourism and night-life prospects.”

Steve Erickson, lobbyist and founder of the Citizens Education Project
Past 25: “The changed demographics. The city has become much more colorful and diverse, less bland, white and LDS.” Next 25: “The demographic shift will continue and the population and density in the city will continue to increase, as will income disparities. The air quality will worsen, water and power shortages will become frequent, and overall quality of life will deteriorate, especially for lower-income households.”

Kevin Kirk, Heavy Metal Shop owner
“I’m going to have to say the most important thing to happen to Salt Lake City in the past quarter century is the opening of The Heavy Metal Shop in 1987. I remember talking with John Saltas on the phone back then about placing ads in the City Weekly (then called The Private Eye). A lot has changed since then. But one thing that still remains the same is The Heavy Metal Shop. We have weathered a couple of moves, but have been in the downtown location going on 10 years now. Thanks to our loyal customers and their kids!”

Steve Williams, KUER 90.1 “Nighttime Jazz” host
Note: Williams started hosting the weeknight jazz program part-time on KUER 26 years ago, on June 24, 1984. He has been the full-time director of jazz music at KUER for 25 years. “In the next 25 years, I’d hope we’d develop some kind of area in downtown where music clubs will be fairly close to each other, along with late-night dining options. It would be great if downtown is walkable and has plenty of parking for the walking tour of downtown. Hopefully, parking costs for the entire evening while you walk the streets will be reasonable and the streets will be safe and lit up. It would be like an arts festival every weekend in downtown Salt Lake City.”

Shelly Thomas Williams, former KSL 5 reporter
“I think the Olympics stand out sharply as the most important event/situation in the past 25 years, and I can’t think of anything that compares in impact. I hope those games (despite the controversy and sharp opposition by some) exposed children to the fact that a large, welcoming world exists outside of Utah, and that life should include exploration. It was satisfying to see the city and state come to vibrant life for those weeks.“In the next 25 years, I expect that downtown Salt Lake City will revitalize to a thriving metropolitan center. Many do not believe it can happen, but I believe it will; not just with the obvious new construction at the north end of Main Street, which will certainly make a major difference. I think Salt Lake can rise again through the fact that many will discover the benefits of a livable, walkable city.”

Jerry Rapier, Plan-B Theatre Company producing director
Note: Plan-B will celebrate its 20th anniversary during the 2010-11 season. “One of the most important things that has happened in/to Salt Lake City in the past quarter century is the creation of the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. It’s amazing that a city this size has such a venue—one whose purpose is to serve the community through smaller arts organizations. There is nothing quite like the energy of walking into the Rose Wagner on a night when shows are running in all three venues and class or rehearsal in all four rehearsal spaces.”

Frank Pignanelli, lobbyist and Deseret News columnist
Past 25: “In 1987, Delta Airlines (after the merger with Western Airlines) named Salt Lake City as a hub site. This subtle but important achievement allows the state to recruit business, entertainment and sporting opportunities.”

Next 25: “Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County will be a major focus of economic and cultural energy in the Western United States. Indeed, as the University of Utah continues to expand biomedical and technological advances that promote development on many levels, our tremendous lifestyle will continue to attract diverse populations and industries.”

Kent Powell, Utah State Historian
“The one event during the past 25 years that has changed life for everyone, both in Salt Lake City and around the world, is the establishment and widespread use of the Internet. The Internet has had a profound impact on just about every aspect of our lives from commerce and business, to education, recreation, communication, and how we do everything from check out a book from the library to pay a bill, register for a class, reserve a tee time at a golf course, purchase tickets for events, and keep in touch with family and friends around the world.

“Perhaps the single-most important development (and my favorite) in the Salt Lake Valley in recent years, is the establishment of the Jordan River Parkway. Although not all of the sections have been completed, many are and the opportunity to bike, walk or jog along the Jordan River 12 miles or so from 200 South to 8500 South, as well as significant sections further north and south, is of immense value to residents of our rapidly urbanizing valley. It does and will continue to provide recreation and a respite to thousands of people. Twenty-five years from now, and even more, people will look back with much appreciation to those who made the parkway a reality.”

Nancy Borgenicht, actress and Saturday’s Voyeur co-writer
Past 25: “The Hotel Utah becomes the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. The closing of The Hotel Utah by the Mormon church in 1987 took away the soul of this community. For me, we have yet to recover.”

Next 25: “John Saltas will be the publisher of a hugely successful daily newspaper with a readership of hundreds of thousands of Utahns who recognize how critical the fourth estate is to the future of our country.”

Betsy Burton, owner of The King’s English Bookshop
“From my perspective as a small-business owner, the creation of Local First Utah is and will continue to be the thing that has had the greatest impact on our city in the past quarter century. Salt Lake City was on the road to ruin—witness Main Street—before we began the process of educating the public and government about the importance of local business to our community and our economy. Now, Utahns are rediscovering their love of community and newly appreciating the uniqueness and vitality local businesses add to it. People are recognizing that what keeps any community alive economically speaking is locally owned businesses—not only do we keep our dollars here rather than sending them out of state but collectively, we form a web of community, reaching out to schools and churches, contributing hundreds of volunteer hours, and many thousands of dollars, not to mention pooling our knowledge and expertise to help keep our community strong.”

Valerie Larabee, Utah Pride Center director
“While the 2002 Olympics put Salt Lake City and Utah on the world stage in an incredibly wonderful way, the fallout from California’s Proposition 8, which repealed California gay marriage rights in late 2008, had just the opposite effect. In both events, the LDS Church was center stage. Salt Lake City’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and its allies took to the streets to protest the LDS Church’s involvement on the side against love and equality. Fast forward two years, and as a result of the division in families over the issues surrounding gay marriage, Salt Lake City receives unprecedented support from the LDS Church and passes groundbreaking nondiscrimination ordinances protecting LGBT people in housing and employment. This action garnered attention worldwide and signifies a ripple in the very large pond that is our world.”

Scott Renshaw, City Weekly A&E editor and film critic
“In 1984, the U.S. Film Festival was just coming under the oversight of Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, a fledgling entity trying to establish the unique concept of an international film festival at a mountain resort. In January. In Utah. Twenty-six years later, the Sundance Film Festival is America’s most celebrated annual showcase for American independent cinema, a brand name that has come to be shorthand for an entire art-house subgenre. While southern Utah may have been immortalized in John Ford Westerns for decades prior, it was Sundance that raised the profile of Utah as a vital center for filmmaking and film enthusiasts.”

Marguerite Henderson, chef, former restaurateur and author
“I think there’s been a resurgence of the food revolution. People have discovered farmers markets, people are growing their own vegetables, and good restaurants are locating here. Twenty-five years ago, there were just a handful. Now, new ethnicities have come into Salt Lake City, serving Thai, Vietnamese and sushi—whereas 25 years ago, you had buffets. High-end hotels like the St. Regis and the Waldorf Astoria have discovered Utah, and it’s a good thing.”

Ted Scheffler, City Weekly dining editor
“I’ve seen enormous advances in the local food and restaurant cultures. For starters, there’s fresh fish. Back in the day, frozen halibut and cod were the only game in town. Now, you can’t swing a cat by the tail without hitting a sushi bar. And, thanks to FedEx and UPS, hard-to-find foodstuffs like duck confit from D’Artagnan, fresh blue crabs from Maryland or New Orleans turduckens are merely a day away. But the biggest change I’ve seen is in the average Utah diner’s and cook’s knowledge of food and world cuisines. I chalk this up in part to the avalanche of cooking shows on television—which have put terms like pancetta, sweetbreads and frisée into our daily lexicon—and also to our local chefs, food and wine purveyors, growers and ranchers who do a spectacular job educating all of us about food and drink.”

Deeda Seed, former Salt Lake City Council member and city administrator, now with Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
Past 25: “I would say passage by the Salt Lake City Council of the nondiscrimination ordinances prohibiting discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation that was also supported by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Loosening of liquor laws in the state was a good thing, or a significant thing.

It remains to be seen what happens with the City Creek development, but certainly the LDS Church’s investment of billion of dollars to redo the two downtown malls is going to be significant, although it’s not done yet and we haven’t totally seen the end result. In addition to those specific things, Salt Lake City has become more progressive and livable and more diverse, and all of those things are great.”

Next 25: More bicycles than cars, a more robust transit system, and a very robust, thriving small-business community. [I would predict] that Salt Lake continues to be an interesting, culturally diverse, livable city with an excellent quality of life.”

Craig Fuller, Utah State Historical Society historian
“Utah historian Dale L. Morgan wrote in 1959: ‘There is no end to change: a city that does not change is dying.’ Indeed, like many U.S. cities elsewhere, Salt Lake City during the last quarter century has undergone a physical change—even a radical face-lift.

“Salt Lake City’s wide streets have narrowed—at least on the city’s downtown Main Street. The streetcar that once rumbled on the city streets at the turn of the 20th century only to be removed has reappeared on the city’s now narrower Main Street as TRAX.

“Main Street’s lining of small retail establishments (with the exception of ZCMI) was replaced in mid-20th century with large fortress-like shopping malls. During the first decade of the 21st century, the big-box shopping malls were torn down, to be replaced with smaller high-end national chains, the historic ZCMI facade being returned to its previous location as well as mixed-use property with much more open space that invites pedestrians. Many of the small retail shops in the malls have been relocated to The Gateway, once the location of the busy Union Pacific Railroad.

“For much of the first half of the 20th century, residential properties and hotels dotted Salt Lake City’s central district. Over time, these residential properties were replaced with high-rise business structures and hotels such as the Boston and Newhouse Buildings, the Kearns Building, the Newhouse Hotel and the Hotel Utah, as well as nondescript warehouses and business establishments. In the 21st century, downtown Salt Lake City is witnessing a resurgence of residential properties in the form of high-rise condominiums and apartments and the once-warehouse and commercial property altered into lofts, apartments and condominiums.

“The public transportation face of the city was once dominated by the Salt Lake City Bus Line. Public transit is now again on the rise, powered by cleaner-burning diesel and other cleaner energy systems. Salt Lake City, once linked to communities north and south by the Bamberger-owned inter-urban railroad is now linked again to communities north and south with the slick FrontRunner.

“Salt Lake City once housed multiple baseball fields where on one field, the old Pacific Coast professional baseball team, the Salt Lake City Bees, played. That baseball field was replaced with Derks Field, which in turn has been replaced with a pleasing, architectural-designed baseball stadium and home of the Salt Lake City Bees of the Pacific Coast League. Other sports teams, such as Real Salt Lake MLS soccer and ECHL Utah Grizzlies hockey have located to Salt Lake City, joining the resident (since 1979) NBA Basketball team, Utah Jazz.”

Michael Clara, community activist
“Wake up and smell the tortillas! Utah’s 2035 slogan will be: ‘Welcome to your ancestral homeland.’ In the midst of today’s xenophobia hysteria, the ultimate irony of U.S. history is that the true natives of this land are now considered the immigrants. The ancient homeland of the Aztecs is where modern-day Utah currently is. Research conclusively debunks the racist mantra of telling Mexicans ‘to go back where they came from.’ These red-brown peoples, who have been vilified as aliens, have roots to this land that go back thousands of years. Shockingly, they even pre-date the days of ’47 Pioneers.”

The Rev. Tom Goldsmith, First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City
“As I look ahead 25 in Salt Lake City, no clear picture emerges; just a mounting heap of deep concern. Since we already have the worst air in the country, the prospects of a clean environment in the future grow less tangible. Incomprehensibly, we still seek to expand widely the growth in our valley without much consideration of public transit, open spaces, regulating polluting industries, or zoning laws that preclude sprawl and protect water resources. We still have a narrow window in which to make good choices. Either we thrive as a green model city or choke on our perverse ways of seeking all that to which we think we’re entitled.”

The Rev. France Davis, Calvary Baptist Church
“By 2035, Salt Lake City will be a majority minority, racially and religiously. The law or ordinances, although largely conservative, will have changed to reflect the needs of this new population. People denied opportunity 25 years ago will now be in charge. While the economy will be strong, those without higher education or technical skills will struggle to get jobs and make ends meet. More technology will make us less people-oriented and less interactive with others. Young professionals will live in the downtown area and get around by train, bus, bicycle or walking. We will be a crowded yet exciting community.”

Ken Sanders, Ken Sanders Rare Books
“I consider the Salt Lake City-hosted Olympics to have been an imposition foisted off on the majority of us by ‘Goodman Beaver’ types who either actually thought they were doing something for the greater good or, as is more likely, were just setting themselves and their cronies up to make a bundle of money off of the Olympics at the expense of the rest of us. I disagree with City Weekly’s contention that the SLC Olympics were one of the most important things that has happened to the city in the past quarter of a century.

“Unfortunately, most of the significant changes over the past 25 years that come to mind are mostly of the negative variety and not celebratory: the continuing planning to destroy Main Street, Broadway and the south end of downtown, no matter what name they call it this time around; the unfortunate sell-out of a city-owned block to a privately owned corporation; the draconian liquor laws that inhibit any sort of nightlife in the downtown corridor; the demise of the Terrace Ballroom and the Newhouse Hotel to make way for Mr. Earl Holding’s gigantic parking lot on Main Street, now the LDS Church’s $25 million dollar parking lot (oops, this one was slightly before 1984); the continued pandering and financial assistance and tax credits to foreign and large corporations at the expense of small and local businesses that make cities unique; well, I could continue my rant, but you get the general idea.

“As to what will Salt Lake City be like in another quarter century: The north end of the city will become ‘MoD’ for Mormon downtown as the LDS Church continues to reinvent the blocks on all sides of Temple Square in their own image; vast developments will arise on the west side that will dwarf the likes of the Gateway; the former Kennecott Copper Corporation will become primarily a real estate- and housing-development company and they will figure out some manner, likely using empty containers from China, to turn the gigantic hole in the ground (the copper pit) into the world’s largest anthill terrarium condominiums, which Babs De Lay will be selling in her dotage after scoring the penthouse condo for herself; the LDS Church, after purchasing every block of downtown from the Jordan River to 700 East, will announce that the Earl Holding parking lot block will be paved over and kept as a parking lot in perpetuity; and that the nearest spot to drink an alcoholic beverage will be on the west bank of the Jordan River and the Hogle Zoo, after another massive infusion of public cash will open their new ‘Restaurant in the Wild’ wherein patrons can stalk and kill their own favorite animal prior to having it cooked and served to them in burger form for only $50 each, plus tax. Oh, and the Wasatch Fault finally slips, and out of the rubble, the Boyer Company announces its new Liquefaction condo project, after purchasing that portion of the valley not already belonging to either Kennecott or the LDS Church for one dollar from the city.

“The future state slogan? Utah, Gateway to Nevada. Gasp, Baby, Gasp.”

Joe Redburn, founder of early Salt Lake City gay nightclubs, including The Trapp
“Most important event in Salt Lake City: Salt Lake City Council passing a nondiscrimination ordinance. Salt Lake City in another quarter of a century will be too big and smoggy. The city slogan should be, ‘Welcome to the most beautiful city in America.’ Tell John Saltas, ‘congratulations!’ ”

Palmer DePaulis, former Salt Lake City mayor and now director of Utah Department of Human Services
Next 25: “We would have finally revived Main Street and connected it to The Gateway. We would be a greener city with lots of pedestrian traffic and people living downtown. We also would likely be in a bid again for the Olympics and would win hands down. Our rail system would be finished and our valley would have significantly cleaner air. We would be rated as one of the most livable cities in America.”

Alan Hebertson, owner of the Coffee Garden
“One of the most important changes in Salt Lake City has been the adoption of the anti-discrimination ordinance by the city and its backing by the church. And I think that City Weekly is responsible for a great deal of the change in attitude in people in Salt Lake City when it comes to accepting alternatives—alternative newspapers, alternative lifestyles, just saying that there is something out there that they haven’t been fed all their lives.”

The Rev. Jerry Hirano, Salt Lake City Buddhist Temple
“I hope that Salt Lake City will continue to grow in accepting the diversity of our community, culturally, religiously and politically. Diversity only benefits all of us—a closed mind detracts from all our lives.”

Tom Barberi, former talk-show radio host
“For me, having had the opportunity to be on Gov. Huntsman’s Transition Team on the Alcohol Committee, and being able to tell the governor in our study and final report that getting rid of the archaic private club law would go miles in letting the world know that Utah was not a dry state. Utah has always been looked upon as a dry state, even though we all know that isn’t true. The abolition of the ‘private club’ rule gives the world the impression that our liquor laws have been normalized. This one change goes a long way in being able to better promote Utah as vacation-convention-business-friendly, as an open state that isn’t a closed society, as many think.

“The next 25 years will see Utah grow in population and prosper as business growth expands greatly. Companies will locate or relocate here because of all the advantages we provide: great natural wonders, excellent location to do business in, educated workforce, business-friendly government.

“I think/hope that Utah will see the mantle of ‘Reddest State in the Country’ disappear and become more balanced in its political atmosphere. I see the Legislature becoming more balanced to represent all the citizens and views instead of the narrow-minded, good-old-boys club it is. The staunch Mormon population is around 60 percent, while the Legislature’s makeup is about 85 percent Mormon—not what you would call true representation of the state’s population. As for a state slogan, how about, ‘Utah, Beautiful Inside and Out,’ or ‘Utah, We’re Not All Crazy.’"