A Salt Lake landmark is coming down soon. Later it might go back up. Well, one part of it might. The rest will go west. Got that?
Beloved as it is, the "Redman Movies & Stories" sign atop a Sugar House office building has a confusing saga ahead. The owner of the five-story structure, Vic Ayers of Park City, reportedly plans to convert it to condominiums. Redman Movies & Stories hasn't called the building home since 1998.
"The building footprint is going to be twice as big," said Bryan Clifton, president of Redman Movies & Stories, the motion-picture lighting company that once had offices in the Redman building. He added that Ayers is still working with a developer, Woodbury Corp., on financing the project. Neither Ayers nor Woodbury returned calls asking when the renovation might start.
"We probably won't take (the sign) down for another three weeks," Clifton said Wednesday. But when the dismantling day comes, he will snap up the "Movies & Stories" portion and hoist it onto the company's new home at 1075 S. 700 West.
It's the word "Redman" itself that faces an uncertain future. Clifton said the new building will still bear the old name, if not the old sign. In other words the original "Redman" might be put back on, making the expanded structure the Redman condominiums. Or, if that doesn't work, a whole new "Redman" beacon may be built to fit the new tower.
The building rose over Sugar House 56 years ago, crowned by a sign that read, "Redman Moving & Storage" — its first tenant. By 1980 that moving company moved to West Valley City, and Clifton's firm took its place on the top floor. "We had to come up with a name, and we only had to remove four letters" to make it "Redman Movies & Stories," he said. The new spelling was more appropriate for Clifton's outfit, which sets up lights and other heavy gear for films, and has worked on such movies as "The Shawshank Redemption" and TV shows such as "Touched by an Angel."
The Sugar House Community Council discussed the sign's fate last fall.
"We encouraged the developer, Jeff Woodbury, to use that ('Redman') in the new design," said council member Helen Peters. "The discussion was: 'What do we love, the building or the sign?' " The council's permission wasn't required for changes in the structure, but if it had been, Peters said she would have advised the owner to "take the building down; let's keep the sign."
E-MAIL: durbani@desnews.com