TOOELE — On a late afternoon in "Newtown" Tooele, the corner of Broadway Avenue and Date Street is quiet.
Few motorists pass through the intersection and, by choice or perhaps out of habit, even fewer glance in the direction of the vacant, red-brick building on the northwest corner. Most of the three-story building's windows have been broken out or boarded up, and vandals have scattered graffiti across its walls.
Even on a street lined with unoccupied, neglected and vandalized structures, the former Hotel Tooele building stands out as the most rundown among them.
But Kevin Peterson, a Salt Lake City-based developer, has seen pictures of the 95-year-old building in its heyday, when the Hotel Tooele, he said, "was the showplace of the area." Through his company, Capitol Management LLC, he wants to restore the building, as the first step in the renovation of Newtown Tooele.
"I've been involved in a number of projects like this," he said. "They all start out looking like disasters. You've got to see the potential."
For the past two years, Peterson has been acquiring property and making plans for a Broadway Avenue makeover. Those plans recently got a boost when the Tooele City Council created a community development area (CDA) for the project, allowing the city to use future tax revenue as funding.
The estimated $7.7 million development and restoration project, which Peterson is calling the Broadway Heritage Apartments, will bring 56 units of affordable housing to the area, along with retail and office space.
The city's financial commitment is minimal: It will pay for the sidewalks, curbs, gutters and street lights. The city also has agreed to be the pass-through organization for a $4 million bond to help the developer fund the project, said Scott Wardle, Tooele city councilman.
Peterson also will use proceeds from from federal low-income-housing tax credits and state historic-preservation tax credits to fund the project.
The project "is going to be great for the city," said Doug Redmond, Tooele's economic-development specialist. "Hopefully, it sparks more interest in that area and leads to more development."
It's also an opportunity to redevelop a historical part of Tooele that Wardle says is desperate need of attention. According to the city's Web site (www.tooelecity.org), the eastern section of Tooele known as Newtown was built in the early 1900s by immigrants from Italy, Greece and other European countries who settled there to work at the International Smelting and Refining Co.
"(Broadway Avenue) really was the old Main Street," Wardle said. "To have that come back to life is going to be a great benefit to citizens throughout our community."
Plans call for the exterior of the Hotel Tooele building to be restored to its look of the early 1900s. On the inside, retail and office space will occupy the ground floor, with 20 one- and two-bedroom apartments on the second and third floors.
A new three-story apartment building with 21 units will be built on a vacant lot just to the west of the Hotel Tooele building.
Hometown Grocery, on the corner of Broadway Avenue and Elm Street, also is scheduled for restoration. Plans also call for a 15-unit apartment complex to be built west of the store.
All of the housing will be priced to accommodate individuals or families at 60 percent or below the state's median income, Peterson said. Over the past 12 months, Utah's median income for a family of four was $58,000 — 60 percent of which is $34,800.
Peterson said he hopes to have all of the financing in place by April 2007 and begin construction in the summer.
E-mail: jpage@desnews.com