‘A transformative project’: Utah’s Bicycle Collective is getting a new home

Utah’s nonprofit Bicycle Collective is getting a new place to hang its helmet.

The organization broke ground Thursday on a 15,000-square-foot, two-story hub in the Granary District, five years after being awarded the land from Salt Lake City’s Redevelopment Agency.

“This is a transformative project for Bicycle Collective and for the community,” the nonprofit’s executive director, Donna Matturro McAleer, said.

The organization provides refurbished bikes for those in need and operates shops in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Provo and St. George.

The new $5 million complex, just west of 300 West on 900 South, will be the Bicycle Collective’s Salt Lake City location and headquarters for the nonprofit’s statewide operation.

When completed, the new building will include retail space, a bike repair shop for the public, space for professional mechanics, classrooms and a place to store donated bikes. It’s a major upgrade from the existing shop at 2312 S. West Temple in South Salt Lake, which only has enough space to accommodate one of those functions at a time.

“This,” Matturro McAleer said, “is going to significantly enhance our space.”

Matturro McAleer said the Bicycle Collective hopes to move into its new digs in about a year.

She said the new location will put the alliance closer to its community partners — such as the International Rescue Committee and Volunteers of America — to find those who are in need of a bike.

The collective focuses on providing bikes to newly arrived refugees and immigrants, people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity, Utahns recovering from substance abuse, and low- to moderate-income families.

Matturro McAleer noted that being just west of the 900 South TRAX station means the public will have easier access to the shop.

Salt Lake City Council member Darin Mano, whose district includes the land for the new complex, said the construction of the nonprofit’s headquarters is an extension of the development that has changed the face of the area immediately around the light rail station.

“One intersection is important and has an identity,” Mano said, “but you need a bit of a of a larger footprint in order to have a true destination in a city, and I think us celebrating this about a block and a half away, to me, represents the expansion of the energy that we’ve seen in Central Ninth.”

Mayor Erin Mendenhall, meanwhile, called the Bicycle Collective the perfect tenant for a parcel bordered to the north by the 9 Line Trail.

“They’ve been building community for years,” Mendenhall said, “and now they’re being knit into the fabric of the middle of this bicycle and pedestrian connection that the city can’t wait to finish.”

Bicycle Collective board co-chair Sean Murphy said the new shop is a piece of critical infrastructure for an active, healthy transportation system. The hub, he said, will ensure that people who rely on costly cars or public transportation have another option to help them get around.

“The project itself,” he said, “is, in my mind, a model for how community bike shops around the country can and should be thinking about the way that they ensure their long-term viability in communities.”

The new building will not only give the nonprofit room to spread out but also activate a parcel in an area poised for growth.

In 2017, the city’s RDA selected the nonprofit to develop its new home on the land. This month, the agency voted to give the Bicycle Collective a $2.25 million loan to get started on the project.

Donations and grants are covering the difference, but the Bicycle Collective is soliciting additional donations to repay the RDA loan as quickly as possible.