Tooele County commissioners have dropped plans to build a warm-up rodeo arena at Deseret Peak Complex, but are moving ahead on the construction of a convention center at the facility.
On Tuesday, commissioners approved the sale of a $2.3 million bond to pay for the convention center, which will be built onto the south side of the existing indoor arena. The project should break ground before the first of September, and be completed in March or April, according to Tooele County Commissioner Jerry Hurst.
Commissioners’ original plan for Deseret Peak expansion involved bonding for $3 million, and also included an indoor warm-up rodeo arena. However, they nixed that portion of the project when cost estimates came back too high, according to Hurst, who said adding the arena would have brought the total project cost to $4.9 million.
Hurst said he would continue to looking at alternate ways to construct another rodeo arena at a lower cost at some point in the future.
The roughly 15,000-square-foot convention center will contain six meeting rooms, each approximately 1,000 square feet, with the option of opening the rooms up into a large hall, according to Tooele County Parks and Recreation Director Mark McKendrick.
“The beauty of this is it’s got walls in there that fold out, so you can make these rooms large or you can close it down,” Hurst said. “It’s pretty flexible that way.”
The project includes the improvement of the arena’s existing concessions area, plus adding a stage and kitchen. Storage space and offices will take up a portion of the new building.
The convention center will match the existing arena, Hurst said.
He added the convention center will be a gathering place in case of a disaster.
“This convention center will take a role as an emergency management center as far as a gathering place and a place to distribute food and water and ice and anything that’s needed,” he said. “It’ll be a place to house people temporarily and a place to distribute things that are needed.”
Hurst said the commission decided to pursue the idea of attaching the new convention center onto the existing indoor arena because the cost of building a free-standing convention center would have been $20 million. The existing building is currently 44,000 square feet.
The bond being floated to fund the project is a sales tax revenue bond, meaning sales tax revenue will be put up as collateral to back the bond.
“I anticipate that we’ll be able to pay it off with the revenue we make there [at the convention center],” Hurst said. “I don’t think it’s going to cost the county. I think it’ll make money for the county.”
Hurst hopes the convention center will at least defray the cost of operating Deseret Peak Complex, which is subsidized by the county.
He said when Deseret Peak Complex was first built, there was actually a plan to build a conference hall and an arena. During Hurst’s 2006 campaign for a county commission seat, he often spoke about the possibility of a convention center at Deseret Peak, and when he got into office, he resurrected the plan.
He believes the new convention center will start bringing conferences and conventions to town immediately.
“It’s a ready-made deal. We get calls basically all the time from people looking for places to have meetings and conferences,” he said, adding those people are often sent to the Utah Firefighters Museum, which wasn’t necessarily meant just for meetings. “Our auditoriums here in the county administration building are being used all the time, and aren’t really big enough to handle a large meeting.”
Despite criticism from some quarters that Tooele is not a viable market for conventions, Hurst said the new center will attract plenty of business.
“I think locals will take advantage of this,” he said. “I really believe we’ll get some conferences out of Salt Lake, but I think we’ve got enough need just from local clubs, organizations and groups.”
He believes local groups, coupled with outside conventions, conferences and rallies that are brought in will make the convention center viable.
Hurst said the Western Park Convention Center in Vernal has been landing conventions that used to be in Salt Lake City just because its meeting rooms are cheaper to rent and parking is easier. He added that particular center is busy 65 days out of 100.
“Being closer to the Wasatch Front and larger population base, I think we could do better than that,” Hurst said.
He said he’s unsure if the county will hire an outside firm to market the new convention center, but that they will first utilize current employees — like Deseret Peak Complex marketing specialist Lindsay Sundloff — to market the convention center in much the same way the entire complex is currently marketed. The center will be managed by the Deseret Peak staff.
“I think it’s going to improve our capability to bring in groups,” Hurst said, “and two big things — one is to give us a place to have some decent-sized meetings and two is to bring in revenue.”
Sarah Miley: swest@tooeletranscript.com
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