Utah Heritage Foundation

Today is demolition day at the West Jordan Sugar Factory.

Demolition will clear the way for an office building for the Third District Court, which is adjacent to the sugar factory.

Built in 1914, the complex of three buildings and two silos was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.  Since 2003, Utah Heritage Foundation has been supporting the work of the local Sugar Factory Committee toward rehabilitation of the complex.  Recently though, a political change of perspective has been led by Mayor Melissa Johnson, decrying the buildings as “an eyesore” and stating that in her opinion “the buildings aren’t architecturally significant.”

Earlier in the year, a temporary home for the West Jordan was shut down under auspices that the buildings were unsafe.  UHF questions the rationale behind this judgment as it came after a city-funded study by BHB Engineers, and city administration gave the sign-off to occupy the building on a temporary basis.  City Manager Tom Steele never stated a concern with safety issues during the last seven years, including while the building was in use.  The city should be held to provide an engineering report on structural condition to not only close the buildings but proceed with their demolition.

This is really a waste – of time and in creation of debris.  This was a project that would be viewed as a western valley landmark facility.  However, each new council, Mayor, and administration failed to provide enough policy continuity to outlast transitions.  Thus we are left with seven years of meetings and studies and no community history to show for it.  With demolition, comes the waste that heads to the landfill.  Did you know it would take at least 350 train boxcars to haul away these buildings?  This means even more trips that are more inefficient than a train if it is trucked.

Mayor Melissa Johnson stated that people visiting West Jordan would rather see "an empty field there than decrepit buildings.”  This should bring great embarrassment to the City to have an elected official make a blanket statement such as this.  It’s the same rationale that led to the demolition of the Louis Sullivan’s Dooley Building in 1964.  Replaced by a parking lot for several years, the owner attempted to give the public confidence in the plan by stating that “keeping the dust down would be easier than maintaining the building.”

 Preservation is not about what is easiest.  Preservation is about what is honest.  Scraping our history that is not grand, shiny, or attached to rich dead white men only makes a community more homogonous.  Industrial facilities like the West Jordan Sugar Factory provide a different story that enriches and diversifies the community.  Without accepting that diversity is the future of preservation denies that it is also the future of America.

This decision is also disappointing as it came after recent pledges toward rehabilitation from former Mayor (and Utah Heritage Foundation Trustee) Dave Newton on behalf of the Newton Family Foundation for $100,000 and Webb Audio for in-kind sound design, engineering, and equipment up to $200,000.  The city had initially pledged to match major donations $1 for every $3 raised up to $1 million total.  That pledge commitment was reduced to the first $100,000, which meant that the commitments would have totaled $400,000.  And if the cultural facility use was not favored any longer, it certainly could have become an office building but was never considered.

As to future plans, the council announced their intent to move forward with a community cultural facility.  Previous discussions revolved around a location near the “center of the city.”  Naturally we believed that meant where city hall, the district court, and the city’s major park are located.  However, these elected officials believe that the center of West Jordan is considered to be the Jordan Landing Mall.  Unfortunately, it seems that all modern planning principles have been thrown out the window at city hall.

In addition, there has been discussion about using salvaged bricks from the demolished sugar factory, either for a new replica building or a historic marker, both merely a contrite homage to this once proud place that built West Jordan and much of the western valley as a community.  This obviously does not hold a candle to authentic historic preservation and is likely to not receive funding from private organizations that support historic preservation.

Demolition of 96 years of history is demeaning, further disconnecting a community from who it is.  It’s more demeaning when it happens this way.