Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Volunteers gathered Saturday to help sort bricks as the new owner started positioning what was once an old church meetinghouse toward its next phase.
The building, located at 740 S. 300 West, was nearly demolished over Easter under the previous ownership, but new owner Skyler Baird and his Salt of the Earth nonprofit took over the property. Baird now has plans to restore the historic church to its original 1910 form using original brick.
"We can turn the basement and the classrooms into housing for people that have come out of addiction recovery," Baird told KSL-TV. "The chapel will be a space that can be for community events, wedding receptions, AA meetings — all sorts of things that can benefit the community."
What was expected to be a lengthy and costly renovation project got a significant boost Saturday morning from community groups, as volunteers sorted bricks out of the demolition pile into "good, better and best" samples while discarding those in poor condition.
"How many bricks do you think we're going to collect today?" chuckled Josh Scheuerman of the Granary District Alliance to a fellow volunteer. "One thousand. It's a good betting number."
Demolition attempt was 'devastating'
The demolition attempt earlier in the year caught the city by surprise and drew ire from some neighbors.
"To see the clear disregard for that history but also like the energy and time that people have put into helping preserve this building was devastating," Scheuerman said.
Many area residents have retained positive memories from the building's days as a meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including Ellie Pack who showed up Saturday morning.
"Great memories, spiritual things happened in there," she said.
Baird's project has now drawn support from organizations like Preservation Utah.
"I am all for an adaptive reuse that meets the needs of our communities," said Brandy Strand, Preservation Utah's executive director. "I think what's really cool about what Skyler is doing is it's not just he's going to help those who need assistance, but he's also going to open it up for other community groups, so it's going to serve multiple purposes in our neighborhoods."
Baird said the next steps for the property include a community meeting before a city landmark commission on Nov. 7 as he seeks a building permit to move forward with the restoration's next phase.
Scheuerman was among those present who were hoping for better days ahead for the historic meetinghouse.
"Hopefully we can get it weathered in, get this cleaned up," Scheuerman said. "I think they can piecemeal this back together and make it better than it was."
The Fifth Ward Meetinghouse was completed in 1910, serving The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Fifth Ward in Salt Lake City. The ward formed on the southwest side of the city in 1853, making it one of the state's oldest congregations, according to a history of the building compiled by the Utah State Historical Society in 1978.
Church leaders had sold the property to private developers when the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The building went through a few different uses after that, including as a Tibetan temple, a night club and a concert venue called the Pompadour Rock and Roll Club, Salt Lake Architecture wrote in 2010.
