Downtown Rising Vision Takes Another Step Forward

The biggest and brightest lights of Broadway are coming to downtown Salt Lake City to further strengthen our outstanding art and culture scene.

One of the eight signature projects of the Downtown Rising Vision is a new performing arts center. This afternoon, Mayor Ralph Becker will announce which of the six sites originally chosen by the Downtown Theater Action Group will be home to the Utah Performance Center.

A few months ago the list of potential sites was narrowed to just six and the anticipation has been building leading up to today’s announcement. This morning, both major Salt Lake newspapers report the site as 135 South Main, known to most Utahns as the Newspaper Agency Corp. building.

Much of the attention today will center around the location of the theater but some additional questions may arise. Here are a few of them, along with the answers.

What is the vision for a performing arts center downtown?
The performance arts center downtown is a 2,500 seat, state-of-the-art theater located in the heart of Utah’s capital city. The center will help fulfill the Downtown Rising vision for a vibrant capital city, rich in the arts, that belongs to all of Utah. This premier venue will attract first run Broadway-touring shows, provide additional options for beloved Utah performing groups such as Ballet West and the Utah Opera, and attract nationally-prominent music and comedy acts. With such a theater as a drawing card, Salt Lake City can attract premier arts presentations and expand cultural offerings to the state and region.

Why is it important that this theater be downtown?
Downtown Salt Lake City has been the center for art and culture since 1862 when city leaders built the Salt Lake Theatre. In 1899, the Utah Legislature created in Salt Lake City the first state arts agency in the country. In subsequent years, premier cultural amenities such as the Capitol Theatre, Abravanel Hall, the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake Arts Center, Discovery Gateway, Clark Planetarium, LDS Conference Center, and Museum of Utah Art and History have all been located in a ten-block area downtown to form a core cultural district. This district is complemented by nearby venues at the University of Utah (just ten blocks away) and Salt Lake Community College (Grand Theatre on South State Street), as well as other venues throughout the region.
The new theater will provide an anchor for this core district in the heart of Utah’s financial, entertainment and government center. The concentration of fine hotels, restaurants and other amenities downtown further strengthens the location.

Are there really enough touring Broadway productions out there for a new theater? Can’t Capitol Theatre and Kingsbury Hall accommodate the need?
Out-of-state experts in three concurrent studies have concluded that 15 weeks per year of touring Broadway theater may be conservatively projected for a large theater in the Salt Lake market. Audience demand may be even greater in a new theater, located in downtown Salt Lake City, where entertainment, restaurants and hotels provide valued amenities to the successful presentation of these attractions and help to nurture and develop new audiences. Critics of the need for a new theater will likely point to the currently few touring productions, but this analysis fails to recognize many other factors that contribute to the number of weeks of touring productions. Equally, if not more, important are the quality of, and the public’s demand to see, particular productions. Blockbuster touring productions such as Lion King, Wicked and Jersey Boys have been very successful because of their appeal. These blockbusters – which still have not come to Salt Lake City – run for multiple weeks in many cities were less popular productions run for only one week.

Why is the theater so large with approximately 2,500 seats?
The new theater must reflect the realities of the touring-Broadway musical market, not the smaller size of New York’s Broadway theaters. Of over 50 American cities that host touring shows, less than five do so in theaters with fewer than 2,000 seats.

The Capitol Theatre and Kingsbury Hall each have around 1,900 seats. They are wonderfully restored venues, but 400 of the Capitol’s seats have sub-optimal sight-lines and in both venues, to varying degrees, the load-in, lobby, backstage, seating, parking, concessions and restroom space are challenging. As a consequence, blockbuster Broadway-touring productions such as The Lion King and Wicked appear in dozens of cities before appearing in Salt Lake City.

Will this new theater impact other arts organizations?
Salt Lake City and the business community are committed to developing this new theater in a manner that does not impair existing arts organizations and their funding. This means that the theater must be part of a grander arts vision that increases Utahns’ participation in the arts and grows Utah’s creative economy. It also means that new public and private funding must be dedicated to the arts, both to fund the new theater and shore up existing arts organizations.

How do the arts contribute to the economy?
In the information age, many companies no longer need to locate near major ports, rail stations or other transportation hubs. Instead, life quality serves as a tipping point for major business location decisions. Utah proudly offers an enviable quality of life that is sustained by our close proximity to premier recreation locations and capped off by our rich entertainment and cultural offerings. In this way, arts and culture in Utah serve as a major catalyst for economic growth.

Utah’s creative economy also contributes directly to the local economy. In Salt Lake City alone there are approximately 9,000 jobs at roughly 800 arts-related businesses. More than 800,000 people attend downtown arts’ events annually, and Salt Lake City was recently rated number 14 among mid-sized cities nationally as an “Arts Destination.”

How will this theater serve residents statewide?
Downtown Salt Lake City serves as the regional center for nearly three million people and functions as the economic, cultural, religious, commercial, legal, financial, transportation and governmental heart of Utah. The performing arts center downtown – like other “capital city” venues (State Capitol, Salt Lake City International Airport, Salt Palace Convention Center, state and federal courthouses, Abravanel Hall and other one-of-a-kind venues) – will proudly serve Utah residents. We anticipate that like these other entities, the new theater will attract students, families and entertainment consumers from all of Utah’s 29 counties.