YWCA Plans $15.5 Million Expansion in Downtown Salt Lake City
By Rattle, Barbara
Ground should be broken by the end of the year for an approximately $15.5 million expansion of the YWCA campus in downtown Salt Lake City.
Plans call for the construction of two new three-story buildings – an approximately 37,000 square foot crisis shelter and a roughly 24,000 square foot residential facility – both serving victims and survivors of family violence.
Anne Burkholder, the YWCA’s CEO, said fund-raising for the capital improvements began in late 2005, just prior to. the organization’s 2006 centennial celebration in Salt Lake City.
“We really wanted to see whether there was private support in our community for this expansion and enrichment,” Burkholder said. “To date we have a little over $15 million and we had some wonderful support. Tom and Mary McCarthy were the first donors to the capital campaign. Jon and Karen Huntsman joined, the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation, O.C. Tanner, the LDS Church – all of those donors were a million dollars and more. So we were very pleased to know the community supported us in doing this.”
Hughes General Contractors Inc. will build the two structures, designed by MC Archiects. Completion is slated for spring 2010.
A second expansion phase, costing about $4 million, is in the early planning stages. It will consist of demolishing the facility’s existing shelter and residence and constructing a new YWCA Center for Families. Offering confidential walk-in services, the center will also expand on the organization’s recently launched Salt Lake Area Family Justice Center, a partnership between the YWCA, Salt Lake City Police Department, the prosecutors office, Department of Workforce Services and Legal Aid Society.
“It brings together a number of critical services for victims and survivors so they only need to go to one place,” she said. “You can talk to an advocate, a police officer. You can file for a protective order, talk to a prosecutor, get assistance if you’ve had to leave your home. It’s trying to bring all those services into one location to wrap around victims and really enhance their safety.”
Presently, the YWCA consists of three buildings totaling approximately 112,000 square feet. The Salt Lake City YWCA was founded in 1906 and had its first offices in the Brooks Arcade building. It has been at its present site on the northwest corner of 300 East and 300 South since 1912.
Copyright Enterprise Business Newspaper Inc. Jul 21, 2008
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