Mayor Holly Daines has predicted that she will soon announce additional private sector financial contributions to the city’s Center Block Plaza project.
LOGAN – In what she called a “little teaser,” Mayor Holly Daines has predicted that she will have good news for city residents at the next meeting of the Logan City Council.
“We have received additional donations for the (Center Block) plaza,” Daines told council members during her opening remarks at their meeting on Nov. 16. “I think that two weeks from now we will be prepared to a make a formal announcement (about those donations) … with all the details.”
Since the Center Block project was approved in spring of 2021, the newly re-elected mayor has led a successful fundraising campaign intended to offset $2 million of the plaza’s construction costs.
Major gifts toward that effort have included $1 million from the Jim and Carol Laub Family Foundation and Cache Valley Electric, plus a $200,000 donation from the Emma Eccles Jones Foundation.
Those gifts, along with other smaller contributions, brought the campaign total to $1.5 million. Then the Eccles family of Salt Lake City joined the effort with a $250,000 challenge grant pledge from their George S. and Delores Doré Eccles Foundation.
During an Aug. 17 meeting of the Logan City Council, Daines explained that Eccles pledge is earmarked to be awarded as “last dollars” toward the project. With $1.5 million raised so far, city officials have been working to secure another $250,000 from the private sector to qualify for the Eccles challenge grant.
The idea for a public plaza to replace the now-vacant Emporium Building on Main Street began as a suggestion from the public during a visioning meeting in summer of 2018.
Although an initial plan for the project was hotly opposed by some members of the business community, city officials persevered in developing alternative plans that eventually found favor with the Logan City Council, the Historic Preservation Committee and the City Planning Commission.
With those administrative hurdles past, demolition of the city-owned Emporium and adjacent structures is now expected during the upcoming winter months. Construction of the public plaza is set to begin in spring of 2022 with completion by the end of the year.
The city’s redevelopment agency has invested more than $4.3 million in the plaza project, including about $1.3 million for the demolition of the Emporium and adjacent structures to the north; about $2.1 million for construction of the public plaza; around $400,000 for the portable ice rink; and about $440,000 for construction of an outdoor stage and an administration building.
City officials also requested another redevelopment grant in the amount of nearly $1.6 million for the remodeling of structures adjacent to the proposal plaza to the south at 41 and 45 North Main Street.
The next meeting of the Logan City Council is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 7.