Salt Lake Crawler

State Capitol Architect David Hart says there's no reason Salt Lake City's new public safety building, on which voters overwhelmingly approved spending $125 million, can't add to the luster of the city's beloved Downtown Library.

"It can be — and it should be — a beautiful building.  . . . . It's a challenge. You have to give that challenge to the architects, designers and planners."

I talked to Hart, who oversaw the renovation of the state Capitol, election night at the current and dilapidated public safety building. ("This building is a disaster," Hart says.) Cops were going in and out of the room celebrating with pizza and Mexican food as a handful of satisfied city officials watched the results pour in.

If Hart could talk the Visigoths at the Legislature into preserving the spectacular aesthetics of the Capitol — I figure advising the City Council on how to make the new fire, police and emergency center at least not hideous will be a piece of cake.

Hart doesn't agree with some critics who argue that a "cop shop" has no place anywhere near the growing arts and culture center of the city. "They need to think of it as an office building," he says, that would be compatible with the high density residential properties expected to emerge east of Library Square. Security requirements don't mean the new building has to resemble a bunker.

Still, Hart warns the city has tough decisions ahead on the design. Will the new building complement the the Downtown Library (above), serve as background for it, or "have its own voice?"

Mayor Ralph Becker, who took a beating when he suggested possibly building the police and fire facility on Library Square, assured me he plans many, many public meetings and that the $125 million includes enough money to pay for good design.

"It's all built into the cost estimates."