I wasn't sure what would be the best thread to put this story in. Ogden is
about the closest to Logan.
Logan: Merchants clamoring for downtown hotel
But the mayor is backing a plan to build a conference center and lodging to the south
By Kristen Moulton
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 01/08/2007 01:11:21 AM MST
It has been almost five years since Logan - with much fanfare - staged a round of brainstorming sessions to come up with a long-range plan for its quaint and yet far-too-quiet downtown.
One of the key goals of
"The Future for Downtown Logan" was to bring in a conference center and hotel. Such a magnet would be the catalyst for rejuvenating a historic district that for decades has suffered a loss of foot traffic.
That never happened, and now downtown merchants are livid with Logan Mayor Randy Watts for his reluctance to embrace a Marriott hotel that investors wanted to build on a prominent downtown corner.
Instead, Watts is sticking by the decisions of the previous mayor,
Doug Thompson, and City Council to encourage Wasatch Property Management to build a conference center and hotel seven blocks south of the city center.
"That train has left the station," Logan City Attorney Kymber Housley declared Friday.
Watts said it would make no sense to drop the developer, Wasatch Property, in what he called "the eleventh hour."
"We've gone through this whole thing for five years, and now we have the person with the money and the property," the mayor said.
All parties agree Logan is not yet big enough for two high-class hotels. And emotions are high in part because Wasatch Properties has applied to become a Marriott franchisee at
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its south Logan site.
"It's sad. It really and truly is," said Lynn Hicken, co-owner of the men's clothing store - Kater Shop - and another downtown business. "Our city fathers lack the vision to do something that could revitalize downtown."
Gene Needham, a member of the board of Logan Downtown Alliance and co-owner of S.E. Needham Jewelers, calls it "absurd" that the city is allowing its conference center to go up south of the historic downtown.
Not only does Wasatch Property's site have traffic challenges because there is no stoplight nearby on the busy U.S. 89-91 that is Logan's Main Street, it's a long hike to Logan's downtown restaurants, shops, performing-arts center and LDS Tabernacle, he said.
"Truly they are putting it in the wrong place. The city is attempting to fill a blighted location with the gem of our tourist effort."
Needham is hopeful downtown merchants can persuade Wasatch Properties' Dell Loy Hansen to shift gears and build his hotel on the corner of 200 North.
That site is too small for a conference center, but the center could be built about a block away on a vacant parcel owned by Cache County, across the street from the new state courthouse, Needham argues.
The Logan Downtown Alliance made its case in a press release issued Friday.
Wasatch Properties, in its own statement Friday, said its $60 million project already under way at 700 S. Main St. "will benefit the vitality of downtown and Logan City overall."
The Logan-based company, which owns office buildings in several states, already explored the option of building downtown, but there was not a site large enough, the company said in its statement.
Wasatch Properties needs a minimum of 15 acres for its office building - now under construction seven blocks to the south - a retail building, restaurant, parking for 600, hotel with 119 rooms and conference center with at least 20,000 square feet, the company said.
Further, the developer has no interest in separating the hotel from the conference center, as the downtown merchants suggest.
"Our studies confirm that it would be a fatal mistake," the company said.
One of the bones downtown merchants have to pick with Watts is that for the past year, he has told them he would listen to any proposals for the corner of 200 South and Main Street, which the city owns and which the previous administration wanted for government use. The tire store there closed last spring, though a title company remains in office space.
At a Dec. 14 meeting with the mayor, however, it quickly became clear to the investors - who own other Utah Marriott properties and who the merchants wooed to the city - that the new mayor is committed to the success of Wasatch Properties' hotel and conference center, not one downtown. The meeting ended abruptly.
The investors, who could not be reached for comment, are no longer pursuing the Logan site, Needham said.
Housley describes the concept he and the mayor were given that day as "too nebulous to take serious"- a suggestion the merchants reject.
For his part, Watts said he believes downtown is close enough that it will benefit from the conference center, which will be served by shuttle buses.
Needham acknowledges that merchants should have been louder in their opposition 14 months ago when the City Council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency board, approved tax-increment financing - essentially a $4.8 million property tax rebate - to Wasatch Properties.
His own brother and business partner, Joe Needham, was among the council members who approved the incentive.
"We probably could have and should have done more at the time," Gene Needham said Friday.
kmoulton@sltrib.com
I've only been to Logan a few times but the city has a nice main street feel with old buildings and green space with there temple and parks. They better keep all there old buildngs on main street.
