Even as they were building Salt Lake City's award-winning downtown library, architects Moshe Safdie and Steve Crane had eyes for another part of the city.
"We talked a lot at that time about Main Street," said Crane, of VCBO Architects.
On Tuesday, the Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency gave the duo a shot at designing and building what officials believe will be a major piece in downtown's revival: a 2,500-seat, Broadway-style theater on Main Street.
The RDA voted to negotiate exclusively with a development, construction and architect team that includes Crane and Safdie, to build the theater.
Garfield Traub Swisher beat out Hines Interests, an international firm that owns the Kearns Building in downtown Salt Lake City, for the right to develop the theater.
"It was very difficult to come to a decision," said community and economic development director Frank Gray, who sat on the selection committee.
In the end, officials said Garfield Traub Swisher's latest effort, the Durham Performing Arts Center, mirrored the Salt Lake project and gave that firm the edge.
The Durham, N.C., center has exceeded financial expectations, bringing in $11 million in contributions to downtown Durham in its first seven months, officials said.
"We want to sit down, roll up our sleeves and start working," said partner Greg Garfield.
The developers and the RDA will spend the next six months hashing out design, construction and financing plans for the theater.
Among the obstacles to overcome, officials said, are concerns from the city's arts community about how the new theater might impact existing venues.
Garfield said his firm experienced similar concerns in Durham.
"They had concerns this theater coming in might take some of the programming away," Garfield said. "We worked very closely with the operator of the new theater and the (smaller) Carolina Theater group to look at events they program. … There was virtually no overlap."
And when events did overlap, Garfield said, the firm was able to negotiate an agreement for co-presentation of performances.
Garfield Traub Swisher also negotiated a revenue-sharing agreement for naming rights between the performing-arts center and smaller theaters.
"I'm excited," Council Chairman Carlton Christensen said. "This has been a hole, if you will, in our Main Street fabric for quite some time."
The RDA has set aside $3.1 million for acquisition and predevelopment consulting as the city looks to purchase the theater site, the old Newspaper Agency Corp. building, from development arms of the LDS Church.
"The elephant in the room is that we are moving forward with this project in these tough economic times," Love said, before noting the RDA dedicated that funding more than three years ago and was not dipping into general-fund dollars to pay for it.
Also Tuesday, the RDA entered into an agreement with the LaPorte Group, a Salt Lake developer, to restore the rundown Regis and Cambridge hotels.
LaPorte plans to demolish the buildings at 235 and 241 S. State, replacing the buildings with a seven-story mix of shops and apartments. But the developer plans to refurbish the State Street hotels and restore the Rex Theater there.
"This proposal nearly brought tears to my eyes," RDA vice chairman Luke Garrott said. "The restoration of the Rex will be an added jewel to our downtown."
In closing the Regis and Cambridge earlier this year, the city lost 116 single-room occupancy units — rooms that went for as little as $80 a week.
But LaPorte's plan calls for 78 studio apartments for low-income tenants.
"We purchased these buildings … five years ago," said RDA chairman Eric Jergensen, "with the idea being, if we didn't buy them, no one else would protect them as single-room-occupancy housing."
The RDA also moved forward with renovating and finding management for the Rio Grande Hotel. The RDA approved $225,000 in repairs for the west-side hotel that will provide another 49 units of low-income housing.
e-mail: afalk@desnews.com