With a big smile, Deeda Seed declared herself "downwardly mobile, literally."
Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson's former chief of staff has become a kind of developer — for the city's Main Library.
Seed, who quit her job suddenly last summer, is now back with the city, scouting for retail and theatrical tenants for the new library's crescent wall. Construction of the wall will begin soon after the first of the year. Anderson wants to fill it with shops, a cafe and deli and, he and Seed hope, space for plays and documentary film screenings.
Unlike other department heads who left City Hall early in the Anderson administration amid acrimony and finger-pointing, Seed and the mayor seem on friendly terms.
Anderson said he was "thrilled" that Seed is working on Library Square. The mayor said that Seed was part of the group that envisioned the square as an urban haven with open space and cultural attractions.
In the waning days of the Deedee Corradini administration, city planners envisioned 121 units of housing on the east side of the library block, which was in Seed's district when she served on the City Council. When Anderson took office, he immediately scrapped that idea, saying the east downtown needed open space and a community gathering spot that would inspire housing development on nearby blocks.
The mayor has since wrestled with the City Council over that plan — or in some council members' minds, the lack of a plan. Councilwoman Nancy Saxton wants the Central City Master Plan in place along with the schematic for Library Square. That master plan will work its way through the neighborhood councils through the next few months and return to the City Council for final approval next spring.
But it was library director Nancy Tessman who hired Seed. She said the part-time position wasn't widely advertised. "I knew Deeda was available . . . and she has a leg up" on relationships with local artists and business people who may be interested in leasing space on Library Square.
"I don't have an office. I have a computer that they found," Seed said. "But my quality of life" leapt up as much as the elevation of her work space decreased.
The third-story office she had to herself when she was chief of staff lost its luster after too many 12-hour days in it. Seed's library position, with the official title of "administrative assistant," is part time, with hours varying from 25 to 30 a week. It will end when the new Main Library opens in early 2003.
Seed's salary went from $92,595 as chief of staff to $29,718 at the library.
Seed, 39, said she had no qualms about taking another city job. When Seed left the mayor's office, she said, "Rocky really pays attention to improving the quality of life in our city. I was proud to be part of that," and "I love Rocky. I just can't work with him."
Tessman said Seed has community connections that will help her find the mix of retail and cultural tenants Library Square needs.
The crescent wall around the 228,000-square-foot library will serve as a kind of sieve, a portal people pass through. Seed and Tessman hope to lease space to groups of artists and performers to complement the Friends of the Library gift store, the coffee shop and a small restaurant. "And we're hoping for a newsstand, so people can run in from the light-rail stop and grab a newspaper," Tessman added.
Urban designer Mark Johnson from Civitas, the Denver firm engaged to draw up plans for Library Square, said such businesses "activate the park, and put eyeballs on it" after hours, "so it's safer."
At a public meeting Monday, Johnson talked with Salt Lake residents and city officials about how to develop a park around the Main Library that would not become a troubled space like Pioneer Park. Open space on the east side of the library block, Johnson said, will attract housing development around its edges, as Denver's Commons Park has done.
"If this block is going to be a park, it has to have a front on all sides," Johnson added. If any side of Library Square turns its back to the street, it won't be inviting. The key to success, he said, is having "eyeballs on the park" at all hours, unlike Pioneer Park, where passers-by have their eyes trained on the freeway entrance.
E-mail: durbani@desnews.com