By Jed Boal., KSL 5 –
SALT LAKE CITY — Demolition crews started tearing down several buildings on Main Street Friday to make way for the new Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City. “It’s time to get this show on the road,” said Alan Rindlisbacher with Layton Construction Company. Artist’s renderings of the finished performing arts center depict a beautiful wall of windows looking out onto Main Street. It’s a place where many can spend wonderful times enjoying shows and music with friends and families, but that’s more than two years away.
Long before the curtain goes up, the old buildings must come down. “It’s our time to perform right now,” Rindlisbacher said of the construction workers. They started prep work in August, and have been demolishing on the backside of the block for a couple of weeks, but now the public can start to see progress.They will take out three buildings to the north of Neumont University. An office tower on the corner of 100 South will integrate with the center. “There will be mass excavation,” said Rindlisbacher. “We’ve got to dig the hole, we’ve got to do the utilities. It’s going to be another year before we start to see the steel come out of the ground.”
The new Performing Arts Center includes a 2,500-seat, state-of-the-art theater that will stage major Broadway shows. It will also attract other national music, performing arts, comedy and family entertainment. This is just that next step in revitalizing downtown Salt Lake that makes it a great place to live, work and play. Construction will start this spring. The new Performing Arts Center will open to the public by the spring of 2016. “It will change the face of downtown Salt Lake,” Rindlisbacher said.
The center has a construction budget of $114 million. No new taxes are needed, because funding came from private donations, existing revenue and new development.