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John Daley ReportingOne downtown Salt Lake landmark with a famous sign is now being renovated.
Is it a sign of things to come?
Anyone who has renovated an old home knows it can be pricey to fix up an old building.
But it's often worth it, especially considering the character it provides to your city.
The old United Electric Building on 400 South and West Temple has a distinctive sign that many of us have driven by in the past.
The building was vacant until a local PR firm decided to buy it and renovate it. They're getting about 1.5 million dollars in RDA loans from the city's redevelopment agency. The building will be home base to about 50 employees for The Summit Group.
Total cost is estimated to be about five million dollars, that's about 30% more than it would be to construct a similar new building.
Bill Paulos, CEO, The Summit Group: "It's more expensive to do a renovation of a historical property than it would have been to build our own building, but it'll give us a personality that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to achieve."
Jill Remington Love, City Council Member: "Our downtown right now is really in an economic boom. We're going to have a new high rise go up, the first in a number of years. There's a lot happening and I think the public is more aware of that development and they want to see our older buildings saved."
The process of renovating here revealed some interesting finds--like massive tin-covered fire doors, old elevators that needed to be dismantled and even a wall resting on a weak foundation that would never be up to code now.
The big challenge now is to make it ready for an earthquake.
City officials say more of these old buildings are being saved now, but it's a race against time because there simply isn't enough money to save all the buildings worth saving.
And just what'll happen to this old sign?--More on that tonight at 6:30.
