As another once-in-a-lifetime project unfolds a block away, members of Utah’s Greek Orthodox community have shelved dreams for their own huge development by the historic Holy Trinity Cathedral in downtown Salt Lake City.
The congregation announced a partnership in 2020 with Utah developer Woodbury Corp. to realize long-pursued plans for a new upscale campus, housing and renovated community center around the century-old cathedral at 279 S. 300 West — along with deluxe upgrades for hosting the popular yearly Greek Festival.
(Renderings courtesy of Greek Orthodox Church of Greater Salt Lake) Members of Utah's Greek community had plans for an ambitious development around Holy Trinity Cathedral at 279 S. 300 West in downtown Salt Lake City before a partnering developer pulled out last September.
With visions of high-rises, elevated green plazas, public walkways, nearly 80,000 square feet of office space, ground-floor restaurants, big kitchens and as many as 550 new apartments, the Holy Trinity redevelopment seemed poised to transform that area of Utah’s capital around Pioneer Park.
The funky church-owned La France, a dilapidated cluster of apartments and row houses east of the cathedral, got demolished in 2022 after sitting vacant for months and catching fire on three separate occasions linked to chronic trespassing.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Firefighters respond to a fire at the La France apartments in Salt Lake City in 2022.
But after years of planning, negotiation, multiple parish assembly votes and internal contention among church members, Woodbury has withdrawn from vying for an exclusive ground lease with the church that was integral to making the whole $300 million overhaul happen.
“We are extremely disappointed by this news as we were on the brink of something great — a much-needed community center,” leaders of a church fundraising campaign to buoy the project wrote a year ago. “Although we have to acknowledge the limitations of time, there is still hope for the future.”
Church leaders are now contemplating a smaller project, focused on replacing a 1980s-era community center and possibly developing other lots they own along 300 West — just as their larger quest to reshape that part of old Greek Town entirely has come into a different light.
A new look for neighboring Japantown
(GSBS Architects) Rendering of draft street designs and light fixtures proposed for Japantown in Salt Lake City. The one-block cultural hub is envisioned along downtown Salt Lake City’s 100 South between 200 West and 300 West next to the Salt Palace, in honor of what was once a thriving neighborhood for Utah’s Japanese American residents.
What’s left of downtown’s once-thriving immigrant enclave known as Japantown along 100 South — a block away from that part of Greek Town — is now in line to be revitalized as part of a taxpayer-supported sports and cultural district pursued by Smith Entertainment Group around the Delta Center.
For Japantown, the multibillion-dollar district plan, backed by the city and SEG, could bring new highlights to its remnants while adding Asian-themed street features and memorial markers in recognition of that once-bustling immigrant presence — before many of its businesses and homes got leveled in the late 1960s for the Salt Palace.
Utah’s Greek community also has a vital, rich, colorful story to tell about generations of immigrant settlers downtown, whose homes and shops spread over multiple blocks beginning in the late 1800s. Those newcomers, who worked the state’s frontier-era mines and railroads, also got marginalized and pushed around, history shows, including once having a red-light district plopped in their midst by order of the Salt Lake City Council.
Today, with Holy Trinity Cathedral celebrating its centennial and the latest three-day Greek Festival opening Sept. 6 — and the big development sidelined — some church members say they are discouraged their own ancestral corner of downtown might miss out.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Olympian Dancers perform at the 42nd annual Greek Festival, on the grounds of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in downtown Salt Lake City. The three-day festival offers a variety of food and pastries with Greek musical and dance performances.
“There’s frustration. Absolutely no question about it,” said a lay church leader, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss sensitive matters within the congregation.
Some in the flock have also wondered how the parish council will use million of dollars donated by members over the years expressly to help fund parts of the larger development.
Said another lay leader, who also asked not to be identified to talk about internal church affairs, said some parishioners sought “to hold those who killed the project to account over their lack of transparency related to the use of the donations.”
Derailed by a bad economy?
(Rachel Molenda | The Salt Lake Tribune) A wide array of food was prepared for the Salt Lake Greek Festival in 2018.
Church leaders unveiled their grand vision for that corner, the community center and adjacent properties — including La France and a surface parking lot across 300 West, next to the Crane Building — in early 2020, mere weeks before the U.S. onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Intense discussions ensued, with the plans and the project’s complex finances subject to a final vote by parishioners and approval by church authorities.
Woodbury later said it spent more than three years and nearly $1 million on consulting fees in pursuit of the agreement with the Greek Orthodox Church, only to essentially yank the plug in mid-September 2023.
Congregants told The Salt Lake Tribune multiple concerns surfaced in the parish assembly, including that the project was too big or, to some, not big enough.
Others feared its potential effects on the Greek Festival and the logistics of at least two years of construction. Yet it was the finances and the complex proposal for up to a 100-year ground lease on the properties with Woodbury, these church members said, that seemed to spark the biggest fears.
In the end, though, it appears to have been the post-pandemic economy that killed it, with Woodbury saying last September that lending and equity markets had soured to the point it no longer could meet the project’s timelines.
(Smith Entertainment Group) A site plan for the downtown sports and entertainment district being proposed by Smith Entertainment Group, owners of the Utah Jazz, just up 300 West from portions of downtown's Greek Town.
“Given this significant change in circumstance,” the developer’s lawyer wrote to the church Sept. 18, “we think it fair to end exclusivity and allow the parish to go negotiate with others regarding the potential projects at your parish site.
“...Unfortunately,” Woodbury’s attorney Wade Budge wrote, “this isn’t the right time for this deal.”
A spokesperson for Woodbury did not respond to a request for additional comment for this story.
Millions in donations
(Renderings courtesy of Greek Orthodox Church of Greater Salt Lake) Members of Utah's Greek community had plans for an ambitious development around Holy Trinity Cathedral at 279 S 300 West in downtown Salt Lake City. That project has now stalled, just as city officials take up a major overhaul around the Delta Center, including a refresh for nearby Japantown.
On Sept. 20, leaders of the church’s fundraising campaign wrote that “despite having paused negotiations with Woodbury,” the goal of building a new community center “remains the same.”
“We expect the current economic climate to improve in the future,” the church Cornerstone Campaign’s leaders wrote in a letter to donors, “and plan to revisit our goal while maintaining the community’s need as a top priority.”
Fundraising records obtained by The Tribune from when the development was still being considered show gifts and pledges from at least 45 individuals, families and foundations and 15 anonymous patrons, in amounts ranging from $1,000 to $1 million — for a total on paper of at least $7.5 million or more of the campaign’s $12 million goal.
Nearly all that came from Greek community members, according to donor lists, while the Huntsman Foundation and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints each kicked in $500,000, and Salt Lake City businessman and philanthropist Khosrow Semnani contributed $50,000.
George Karahalios, president of the parish council, said in an interview the church is actively exploring conceptual plans for a new community center with another developer and a presentation to parishioners is expected in November.
“We’re kind of in the infancy stages of a completely new concept on the community center, not what it was before,” Karahalios said. That has meant dropping, for now, he added, the notion of any new housing construction.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) The historic La France apartments on 300 South in Salt Lake City. Owned by the Greek Orthodox Church, the dilapidated housing east of Holy Trinity Cathedral was torn down in 2022.
“We’re not in that business right now at all,” he said of building new apartments. “We just want to basically try and keep this as clean as possible.”
Though he added the church intends to replace the housing at La France someday, city Planning Director Nick Norris confirmed that the parish won’t be legally required to do so because it was torn down by order of the city after being declared dangerous.
“Therefore,” Norris wrote in an email, “there was no housing-loss mitigation required.”
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Firefighters respond to a fire at the La France apartments in Salt Lake City, Thursday, March 10, 2022.
Karahalios said funds donated toward a new community center when the big development was still on the table will now go toward future costs of a scaled-down replacement.
“Those are earmarks,” he said of the donations. “We really can’t use those for anything else.”
As to cash donated by parishioners for other aspects of a larger project — such as gifts directed toward Sunday school classrooms, clergy offices, rooftop terraces, a theater and a bookstore — Karahalios said the parish council is aware of a need to be true to those original intentions.
“We get that. It’s important that we do that,” he said, “but there’s also a lot of the money that came in just saying, ‘This is for the community center. Use it how you want.’ "
‘Connect the dots’
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Once at the heart of the city’s old Greek Town, Greek Orthodox Church-owned parcels under and near historic Holy Trinity Cathedral total about five acres of land, including several parking lots and what was once site of the distinct white La France Apartments, with 60 aging row houses east of the church.
With regard to the prospect of a taxpayer-funded district overhaul being considered up the street by the Delta Center, Karahalios said he had been in touch with organizers of efforts to recognize Japantown as part of the SEG district, mostly to exchange information.
Greek Town and Japantown, he said, “are really two completely different projects.”
Salt Lake City Council member Darin Mano, along with his council colleagues, has supported funding for Japantown renovations and recognition as part of the city’s pending deal with SEG for a sales tax hike to help fund the sports, entertainment, culture and convention district.
Notably, part of what the City Council is considering with the SEG district involves tweaking what’s allowed in some downtown areas, such as permitting much taller buildings. That same zoning also covers the nearly 5 acres the Greek Orthodox Church owns near the cathedral.
So far though, Mano said, Greek Town has not been part of conversations involving the new Delta Center district or Japantown — with one key exception.
Mano said Japantown supporters have proposed creating a museum as part of the 100 South refresh. “Maybe,” he said, “we need to expand the scope of that” to take other histories in the downtown area into account, “and then it could be something to justify an ask to the Legislature for funding.”
“I’d love to see,” Mano added, “if this is something we can connect the dots on.”
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