What To Do With A White Elephant?

Blaine Gehring, AICP

City Planning and Redevelopment Director

During the late 1800's and early 1900's, Bountiful City had an Opera House which was one of the main sources of community culture and entertainment. Everything from plays and musical productions to roller skating and basketball games were held in the second story of the old building was located at the corner of 100 North and Main Street. The first floor was used for retail along with a single story grocery store on the very north end. As the old Bountiful  Company evolved into the Davis County Furniture Company, it moved into the old opera used both floors for their retail furniture business. As the company became known as the Furniture Company and later Lakewoods Furniture, it cut a hole in the north wall of the old house and expanded into the old grocery store as well.

Lakewoods Furniture closed its doors in 1995 and the building sat vacant. A computer mapping company known as REDCON purchased the old grocery store section of the building and did a total interior renovation of the old store. But the old opera house portion of the building remained empty. New seismic and building codes combined with structural damage created by an earlier fire in the building made it very costly for anyone to use the building and the cost of demolition was also cost prohibitive.

In 1997, in response to the growing concern of local banks to lend money on non-conforming uses, Bountiful City went back to its roots and created a new Commercial/Residential Mixed Use (C-R) Zone in its historical downtown area. This led the way for a local developer, Brian Knowlton, to propose a unique use for the old building. Along with his partners, they formed Opera House, LLC, and presented a plan to Bountiful City to convert the old opera house/furniture store into a mixed use development of housing and commercial spaces. The plan called for 14 one and two bedroom condominiums to be created on the second story with the first floor remaining as commercial uses. To help with the code requirements, Bountiful City adopted the Uniform Code for Building Conservation which provided for some relaxed code requirements for renovating an older building. An additional home was purchased to make way for the necessary parking for the project. A small low interest loan was also made available from the Redevelopment Agency's revolving loan fund to assist in the parking lot expansion and landscaping.

The creation of a unique zone in a traditional commercial district and adoption of a building code for the renovation of older buildings combined with the vision on a young developer has created a unique use in downtown Bountiful and preserved a historical building in the process. The first of the new commercial users, Club Mud (a pottery shop), moved into the building this past fall. Additional businesses and professional offices are being created and will be open this spring. Six of the condominium units have been sold and the first of those owners will be moving in by the end of January.

If you would like more information about the project or would like to visit it, contact Brian Knowlton at (801) 292-0692 or on his mobile phone at (801) 550-6818. A copy of the Commercial/Residential Mixed Use Zone is available through Blaine Gehring at the Bountiful City Planning Department or on Bountiful City's website at www.ulct.org/bountiful. The Uniform Code for Building Conservation (UCBC) is available through the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO).