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Keith McCord Reporting You've probably noticed a big change at the Salt Palace Convention Center. The huge expansion project is in full swing.
Drive along South Temple and you'll see heavy equipment driving in and out of a gap in the corner of the building. On 3rd West, you'll see construction cranes, cement trucks, and workers high up on scaffolds. Inside, crews are everywhere, dry walling, welding, pounding away at the walls. They're doing two shifts a day, six days a week.
Allyson Jackson, G.M. Salt Palace: "At any given time, but it shifts depending on what needs to be done, anywhere from 100-200. Averages between 135-150 on a daily basis."
Work on the 145,000 square foot addition began back in December 2004. Construction has started and stopped a couple of times since then to make way for the Outdoor Retailers Show, Salt Lake's biggest convention and the reason for this latest expansion.
This is one of those construction projects where they have a hard completion date; that is, they must be done July 27th of this year, in time for the next Outdoor Retailers show.
When completed, the Salt Palace will have more than a half-million square feet of exhibit space. In the very competitive convention business, that's a big deal.
Allyson Jackson, G.M. Salt Palace: "But going over the half-million mark of exhibit space takes us in to the bottom of the top convention centers. This takes us out of the middle bracket and bumps us up."
And when you have a substantial increase in exhibit and meeting room space--all state of the art-- attracting big conventions in the future becomes much easier.
The Salt Palace Expansion project is about 70 percent complete; the final price tag sits at 58-million dollars.
