Salt Lake Metropolis gives climbing health club $2M mortgage after dispute sparked monthslong ‘pause’

SALT LAKE CITY — The Redevelopment Company of Salt Lake Metropolis has determined to maneuver ahead with a $2 million mortgage to a well-liked climbing health club after it put the mortgage on “pause” earlier this yr amid a rift between the health club’s proprietor and Climbing USA, which can also be seeking to construct a climbing health club within the metropolis.

Company officers stated they wrapped up “extra due diligence” on the Entrance Climbing Membership and decided to maneuver ahead with the mortgage.

“We have now despatched the applicant the mortgage paperwork for assessment and are working towards closing and funding,” the company added in an announcement to KSL.com on Friday.

The Redevelopment Company’s board — members of the Salt Lake Metropolis Council — initially approved the mortgage late final yr to assist the enterprise full the primary three phases of a four-part growth plan. The favored climbing health club opened in Salt Lake Metropolis’s Ballpark neighborhood in 1998 and the three new phases are anticipated so as to add about 70,000 sq. ft.

However the metropolis company put the mortgage on “pause” in January over feedback its proprietor, Dustin Buckthal, made to Climbing USA that it deemed had been “incompatible with the general public advantages and community-building we goal to assist.”

Climbing USA is planning a brand new headquarters lower than 10 blocks from the Entrance. Buckthal and different firm executives despatched Climbing USA a letter days earlier than the mortgage was accepted, opposing the portion of the mission that would come with a big industrial health club inside the facility.

“(The) proposed industrial health club is a direct menace to the native companies which have lengthy supported (USA Climbing) and the native Utah communities,” the group wrote.

Buckthal advised KSL.com in January he was unaware the Redevelopment Company had been partaking in land lease talks with Climbing USA on the identical time he had utilized for the mortgage. The lease would hold the governing physique within the Rio Grande District for not less than 99 years.

He believed the pause was retaliation for the Entrance’s opposition to Climbing USA’s industrial health club. RDA director Danny Walz despatched Buckthal a letter informing him of the mortgage pause, Walz wrote that Buckthal had “taken steps to quash the growth of USA Climbing.”

Amanda Greenland, a spokeswoman for the company, stated in January the assessment would concentrate on a portion of the mortgage utility that “cited sturdy development potential within the native climbing market.” She stated the company believed the letter to USA Climbing could have contradicted that assertion.

It wasn’t instantly clear what was reviewed since January, however Redevelopment Company officers stated they imagine there was “sufficient monetary stability” to maneuver ahead with providing the mortgage, regardless of “future market competitors.”

KSL.com reached out to Buckthal for touch upon the Redevelopment Company’s resolution to unpause the mortgage, however didn’t get a response by press time.