Art, music staying in downtown Salt Lake City. But how and where?

In a backroom at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, a dozen children wearing smocks were busily painting and chatting away as executive director Laura Allred Hurtado showed me and a photographer around the indistinct building, sandwiched between the Salt Palace Convention Center and Abravanel Hall in downtown Salt Lake City.

The kids were immersed in the museum’s artist-training program, where they get to explore arts techniques and mediums, visit artist studios, learn about contemporary art and make messes and mistakes along the way, as the course description reads. At the end of the weeklong session, their work goes on display in a special exhibit.

Two of the girls, who later told me they’re 10, approached us.

“This is our job now,” one said. Asked if they get paid, she said, “No, but we get to make art.” She apparently gets the starving artist thing already.

One of them asked if I was there to write about saving UMOCA.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Dennis,” I told her.

“OK, good. You’re not Ryan Smith,” she said.

“Yay, you’re not the person trying to take this place down,” the other girl added.

Culture club

The future of the museum and, perhaps more so, the future of the adjacent Abravanel Hall, home of the celebrated Utah Symphony as well as Utah Opera, are the topic of much speculation and controversy — even among 10-year-olds — as Smith’s company proposes to give the city center what might well be termed an extreme makeover.

Smith Entertainment Group, which owns the Utah Jazz and the new Utah Hockey Club , intends to put $3 billion into a sports, entertainment, culture and convention district covering a three-block area east of the Delta Center. The proposal includes reconfiguring the arena entrance to face east, pedestrian plazas, taking 300 West underground between 100 South and South Temple, and building one or more residential towers and a hotel. The project, which aims to better connect the east and west sides of downtown, will impact the convention center, museum, symphony hall and Japantown Street.

Last month, Salt Lake City endorsed a participation agreement with SEG and is also poised to increase the sales tax rate to raise $900 million to help renovate the Delta Center to accommodate both NBA basketball and NHL hockey. The agreement await’s approval from the Utah Legislature’s five-member Revitalization Zone Committee.

Almost immediately after the plans were announced, the arts community and others started to fear the worst: that Abravanel Hall and UMOCA would be torn down to make way for the new development, that sports and entertainment would steamroll arts and culture. In May, Utah Symphony musicians launched an online petition to save the hall that now has nearly 50,000 signatures. Residents packed a Salt Lake City Council meeting earlier this year not only to plead for the buildings but to scold government leaders for even thinking about razing them.

SEG insists that was never its intent.

“We are deeply committed to making sure that symphony hall is on site, to making sure UMOCA is on site, that arts and culture are a central piece to this downtown district. Without those, it’s not what we’re looking for. It’s not what we need. It’s not what the region needs,” Mike Maughan, a SEG executive and project principal, told Deseret News in a recent interview.

“I’ve said it a hundred times. I know I’m going to have to say it a hundred thousand times, and that’s OK because repetition is the mother of all learning.”

Hurtado and Utah Symphony President Steve Brosvik are taking Maughan at his word. Both said they have open lines of communication with SEG. Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County leaders have also publicly stated the two should remain in the district. And Maughan said nothing is being done behind closed doors; there’s no side conversations going on.

Brosvik doesn’t disagree.

“For anybody who feels like there’s a bulldozer waiting at the front door of Abravanel Hall for when we’re not looking, I just don’t think that’s the case,” he said. “I think everyone can be confident that there’s going to be good solutions. I don’t know what they are.”

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t fear and trepidation about what will become of those beloved artistic and cultural spaces that opened in 1979.

“Are we scared? Some days. And are we very excited other days? Yes,” Hurtado said.

Renovate or rebuild?

While there does appear to be genuine agreement that Abravanel Hall and UMOCA remain in the district, no decisions have been made as to what they will look like or where they might be. Even before SEG proposed the downtown project, both recently drew up major renovation plans, which could conceivably be worked into the revitalization plan. But the two buildings could also be torn down and rebuilt on or near their current sites. Those decisions rest largely with Salt Lake County, which operates both facilities and subsidizes the symphony and the museum.

“It’s a very sincere attempt to preserve the hall as is. But I don’t have all the information right now,” Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson said. “I’m literally going through architectural renderings to say how do we preserve but not compromise the connectivity and activation we’re looking for for all of those assets.”

Before even considering what to do with Abravanel Hall, she said the county needs to figure out how to replace about 40% of the nearly 1 million square-foot Salt Lake Palace Convention Center that would be bulldozed in the SEG plan. And that’s complicated.

“What’s often overlooked is the extensive amount of renovation that will need to be done on the Salt Palace. First and foremost, the county and region and the state can’t walk away from our investment in the facility,” Wilson said, adding the convention center not only generates revenue but impacts hotels, restaurants and the city’s reputation. “Equal or beyond the importance of keeping the Jazz and adding hockey is a vibrant tourism industry.”

Conventions and visitors in Salt Lake County generate $5 billion annually in direct spending and more than $10 million a year in hotel tax revenue for Salt Lake City, a county economic analysis shows.

One possibility, and what Wilson said is the least expensive option, would be to take the Salt Palace exhibition space, which doesn’t require windows, underground below Abravanel Hall. That would require tearing down and rebuilding the hall. Wilson said the county doesn’t mind shrinking the exhibit space but the building needs a second ballroom to compete with other cities and “supercharge” its convention business. The current ballroom operates at over practical maximum occupancy eight months of the year and reaches ideal occupancy the remaining for months, according to the county.

A cost analysis estimated replacing the square footage range at $800 million to $2.3 billion, she said. Wilson said she has also looked at moving the symphony hall down the street closer to the Hyatt Regency as well as other nearby properties.

“There aren’t a lot of options to replace that square footage. The reason this (going underground) was even suggested was we’re trying to avoid additional cost and additional infrastructure needs,” she said. “There’s quite an expense to that but Salt Lake County doesn’t have the revenue stream.”

That means, Wilson said, the Utah Legislature would have to provide the money. “The Legislature’s going to want to have to do this,” she said. “We’re not going to compromise the success of our Salt Palace.”

And, she added, even though there’s a desire to refresh and open up downtown, “There’s a good chance it doesn’t happen, in my opinion.”

Maughan said it’s too soon to talk about funding for Abravanel Hall and UMOCA. He said he understands the county has its own funding sources for the hall, museum and convention center.

“We’re in ongoing conversations with the county regarding what they want to do but that’s up to them. Until they’ve made those determinations, I think it’s premature to talk about who’s funding what or where or how. But we definitely are going to put $3 billion into this downtown district to help create this thriving urban core,” Maughan said.

Pitch perfect?

Building a new symphony hall — Wilson said it will continue to bear the name of former longtime conductor Maurice Abravanel regardless of what happens — is an expensive proposition.

Plans for a new concert hall in Columbus, Ohio , came in at $275 million. David Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center underwent a $550 million remodel two years ago. Opening in 2016, the Elbphilharmonie — featuring three concert halls, 45 apartments and a hotel — in Hamburg, Germany cost $1 billion.

“You can spend as much as you want,” Brosvik said.

Built before the Americans with Disabilities Act, it’s not accessible to everyone. The HVAC system needs an upgrade. The master plan estimates the cost of renovating the building at between $199 million and $219 million, including performance space, front-of-house upgrades and additions, back-of-house improvements, event space additions and plaza upgrades. Retrofitting the hall for earthquake mitigation would add another 10%.

The acoustics in Abravanel Hall have played a part in the discordant debate over its future. Some musicians call them perfect. Others disagree. Wilson said whatever happens, the acoustics should be better, not worse. But, she said, acoustics are only one factor. The county also has to consider symphony attendance and how the hall is being used when the orchestra isn’t rehearsing or performing, she said, noting comedian Jerry Seinfeld brought his act to the stage earlier this month.

Brosvik, who has worked as Utah Symphony president for four years, describes the acoustics in the concert hall as “very good,” and said that the renovation plan proposes to make them better. But if the decision is made to tear down the building to make the project work, what is constructed in its place “has to be special,” he said.

“These buildings become landmarks in all of their communities. If it’s just minimized, no one’s going to be happy with that solution,” he said.

Brosvik said he’d like to see Abravanel Hall — with an entrance that faces the proposed plaza space — anchor one end of the proposed district and the Delta Center the other.

The biggest question, he said, is where the symphony would go if there’s an extended renovation or the building is razed and rebuilt, which he estimates could take at least four years. Costs go up every time the orchestra leaves the 2,800-seat hall to perform, he said. A smaller venue means less ticket revenue and dramatically reduces its ability to make money.

Reimagine downtown redux

Abravanel Hall and Utah Museum of Contemporary Art were born of an effort to reimagine downtown Salt Lake City more than 50 years ago. In 1972, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development official who visited Utah at the invitation of Gov. Cal Rampton suggested the upcoming bicentennial could be a catalyst to adding the arts as a central fixture of the city’s identity. Politicians, community leaders, arts organizations, the public and the press wrestled with the idea of a downtown performing arts and visual arts complex. Voters ultimately approved a bond in 1975 to pay for it.

The Salt Lake Art Center and Symphony Hall opened next to each other in 1979. But their histories go back much further than that.

The art center opened as the Art Barn in 1931 at Reservoir Park on Finch Lane. The Utah State Symphony Orchestra formed in 1940, and with the arrival of maestro Maurice Abravanel in 1947, it grew into a regional powerhouse. For more than three decades, it performed at the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square.

The UMOCA building, which houses two floors with six galleries, including a 6,000 square-foot main gallery on the lower level, is almost indistinguishable between the Salt Palace and Abravanel Hall. Several colorful banners don’t seem to do much to beckon would-be patrons. The museum also has a 155-seat auditorium, an education space, meeting rooms, artist-in-residence studios and a lobby with a small gift shop.

Over the years, the museum has featured culturally significant exhibitions including “As the Lake Fades,” which explored solutions to the receding Great Salt Lake, and “Guerilla Girls,” focused on the anniversary of women’s right to vote. It’s currently hosting “In Memory,” highlighting works on the many angles of what it means to remember.

“It’s beloved to us. We love what we have done here and what we can do here and the legacy here. But we are open to what the future looks like in the next 50 years,” said Hurtado, who became the museum’s executive director in 2019 after working for six years as the global acquisitions art curator for Church History Museum of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

UMOCA faces likely relocation to a more visible spot in the district, but Wilson said that’s a decision for down the road.

Renamed after Abravanel in 1993, the angular building has become an architectural icon in the heart of the city. The four-story glass lobby boasts views of Temple Square and the Wasatch Mountains and is home to the Olympic Tower, a red blown-glass sculpture by renowned artist Dale Chihuly. The performance space is actually a concrete building within a brick building, blocking out the urban din. White oak with distinctive raised paneling covers the walls. The stage was designed strictly for use as a concert hall, and as an extension of the audience. Cello and bass players make holes in the stage with their endpins, so that their sound resonates with the wood of the hall, and not just their instruments.

But it’s 45 years old and needs updating.

Acclaimed artists that have performed with the 87-member orchestra include Itzhak Perlman, Marie Osmond and Bernadette Peters. Concertgoers, musicians and others have formed an attachment to the hall over the years, and Brosvik said sentimentality is a factor as its future is debated.

“What happens in the building? We play music. Music is an emotional thing. It grabs people, whether it’s fun and funny, deeply serious, spiritual. All those connections are there and people then attach that to the room in which they heard the performance,” he said.

Sport, entertainment, culture, convention

An American for the Arts analysis of the economic and social impact of nonprofit arts and culture organizations in Salt Lake County last year found residents would feel a great sense of loss if those activities and venues were no longer available. They see them as pillars in the community. The survey found more than 10 million people attended arts and culture events in the county in 2023, spending $405.9 million.

Whether in a remodeled or rebuilt Abravanel Hall or a new Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, those in the arts community want to continue to inspire and move people, and they want to ensure it happens in the heart of Salt Lake City.

“Our goal is to be an active, engaged part of this district,” Brosvik said. “We feel responsible to help audiences get closer to the music we perform.”

Kellie Bornhoft, the newest artist-in-residence at UMOCA, said she’s not aware of another space in Utah that primarily shows contemporary art and has the audience and reputation the museum has built. “It’s the kind of institution that puts Salt Lake City in terms of cultural presence on the map with other big cities,” she said.

Salt Lake County has supported the arts and culture community financially and otherwise for nearly 50 years. “That legacy is extremely important to us,” said Matt Castillo, county arts and culture director.

Maughan said arts and culture are “absolutely necessary” in the district and the project doesn’t work for SEG without them.

“When we say if everyone isn’t taken care of, we’re not moving a single brick, we mean that. And by everyone, I mean the symphony. That future of the symphony needs to be assured and the investment there needs to be. We need to make sure that investment there is solid before we’re going to do anything with the Delta Center. Same is true of UMOCA. Same is true of the convention center,” he said.

“All of these entities have to be take care of or we’re not going to do this because we’re only doing this if it becomes a moment in time where we can lock hands with all of these different entities and say that we believe in a downtown urban core with that has sports, entertainment, culture and convention.”