SALT LAKE CITY — Community leaders and Sen. Orrin Hatch are lobbying for demolition of the 92-year-old Shubrick Building as part of the Frank E. Moss Federal Courthouse expansion project.
A tenant of the Shubrick is the Port O' Call, one of the city's best-known night spots.
Hatch cites security concerns for his encouragement of the General Services Administration to purchase the building.
The Salt Lake Chamber also urged that the building be confiscated.
"The new courthouse will need greatly enhanced security buffers and deserves an appropriate setting and level of distinction befitting the importance of the Federal Judiciary, thus necessitating the relocation of the historic Odd Fellow building, renovation of the Moss Courthouse . . . and demolition of the Shubrick and other noncontributing buildings on the block," the chamber said in a January resolution.
Shubrick owner Kent Knowley initially did not want his building included in the project, but he did not want to see it walled off either.
"I don't want to get rid of the business, but if they're forcing me into it, I've got to do something," he said.
Knowley's lawsuit against the GSA filed last May seeking fair compensation for his properties was recently thrown out and after years of stop-and-start negotiations, momentum has picked up on the project.
City Weekly, The Galley restaurant and Diamond Parking have received money for their relocations.