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Opera company has eye on historic building in River Heights By
Matthew Flitton
At the corner of 500 East and 500 South in River Heights stands a building with a full past and an uncertain future. The Utah Festival Opera Company (UFOC) plans to use the building as an archive for musical collections, as a cultural center, to store costumes and scenery and as housing for a live-in maintenance person. Because the area is zoned for residential use, UFOC needs a conditional use permit. Before approving that use, the River Heights City Council still has some questions. "We are wanting to give the building a second life for many projects taking place there for many years," said Michael Ballam, UFOC general director, in an April 10 interview. River Heights officials and UFOC have been discussing the issue for almost six months. Much of that delay has been due to Ballam's difficulty in meeting with the City Council. In an April 10, council meeting, Mark Brenchley, UFOC managing director, told the council that, with the exception of housing a person for maintenance, permits weren't needed. He said UFOC moved in as the school district was moving out and that it is just continuing the building's use as a community center, library and storage facility. Chad Downs, deputy superintendent for Cache County School District, who owns the building, said the school district would tear down the building if it were not used by the UFOC. "It will be razed and turned into building lots," he said. The building began as a meetinghouse for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It replaced a meetinghouse that had burned down in February 1932. Church President Heber J. Grant dedicated the edifice April 22, 1934. In a book detailing the history of River Heights, City Councilman Wanda Rhodes told the story of Bishop Lehi Olson. He finished the work in the building despite an oncoming illness. A few days after completion, he was hospitalized and died. Ironically, the bishop's was the first funeral in the new building. Annette Smith, treasurer for River Heights and Olson's granddaughter, remembers that event, and hopes the building will stay. "They promised at the funeral, that the building would be taken care of forever," she said in a Jan. 23 council meeting. "Why are we so quick to tear down old buildings?" Cache County School District bought the building in 1976 after the church moved meetings to a building on 800 East. Downs described the decision to purchase. "We needed more space, and it had a nice gymnasium, and the price was right," he said. The school district installed a new furnace, turned the chapel into classrooms, and installed a media center in the basement. The old church served as the west campus of River Heights Elementary for the next 23 years. The district's testing center for special education was housed in the building as well. "It served an excellent service and provided housing for us for 20 something years," Downs said. River Heights Elementary School moved in 1999 to a building three blocks east. The UFOC took possession of the building at that time, leasing it for the token sum of $1 per year. The UFOC has been referred to the planning commission for the conditional use permit. But if the views of city officials are any indicator, the old building will continue to serve the community for many years to come. "I'm all for it," said Mayor Ralph Degn, in an April 10 council meeting.
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