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Keith McCord Reporting Just in the nick of time, the Salt Palace expansion project is coming to an end. Next week, the new halls and meeting rooms will be filled by the Summer Outdoor Retailer Show, the largest convention the city has ever held.
Want to see what 52-million dollars looks like? The finishing touches are being made to the newly expanded Salt Palace, now 679-thousand square feet of meeting and exhibit space.
Peter Caroon, SL County Mayor: "I hope this is the only time that you'll see this facility empty."
It won't be empty for long; nearly one-thousand exhibitors with the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market will begin filling up ALL of the space next week. The expansion was done to accommodate the two outdoor shows held there each year, but it now creates other opportunities.
Scott Beck, CEO Salt Lake Convention & Vistors Bureau: "This expansion has already paid off. We've been able to maintain the repeat business with the outdoor retailers annual show and we've been able to put new business into this building that we would never have been able to before."
This Salt Palace expansion has a way of making you feel tiny. A table set for 10 sort of looks like doll house furniture in there.
Bodell Construction, with 750 workers, pulled off this project in just 22-months. There's more than 15-thousand square feet of glass, 336 miles of electrical wire and 46-hundred tons of steel. There's enough carpet to cover the football field at Rice-Eccles twice!
Mark Bodell, Bodell Construction: "There's 26,000 cubic yards of concrete. That's enough to build a sidewalk fro here to Wendover."
It's also environmentally friendly. Special plumbing fixtures will save more than a million gallons of water each year; and 108 solar panels on the roof will light the underground parking garage.
Allyson Jackson, Gen. Mgr. Salt Palace: "And when you consider that those lights are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we're saving a lot of power."
There are still some little things a to be completed, plus some large art pieces that will be installed in the fall, but in terms of being "convention-ready", it is.
