SALT LAKE CITY — The historic building that was damaged after the illegal demolition of the Historic 5th Ward Meetinghouse was planned to have been used as a venue for pro-LGBTQ+ events.
Jacob Buck and his business partner are creating “Third Space SLC,” a queer-centric event space. They were hoping to use the historic building in the granary district.
"We had plans to meet with an architect this week, like literally yesterday, to go over plans and how we wanted to construct the building,” said Jacob Buck. “We wanted to use kind of the essence of the building, the purpose of the building, when it was first created was a meeting house so we want it to still have that flair of community members being able to host, promote and inform the community of what they’re doing."
For the past few months, Buck said have been working with the developer, TAG SLC, and sharing plans with the granary district about what they hope to use the space for. The developer listed on property records, Jordan Atkin, with TAG SLC, did not share a comment with FOX 13 News.
On Easter Sunday, Buck was driving by and watched this historic building being torn down.
"Distraught, a little bit, devastated, not only was it exciting for us and our plans, but it’s been a large space for other people, like throughout history because it’s over 100 years old, It’s been a lot of different things, and they’ve been able to create special moments for people,” said Buck.
Salt Lake City issued a stop work order, saying they had not issued the permits to tear down a protected building. Officials are working on taking action to prevent these situations from happening again.
"I think the community has rallied enough to where this building will be taken care of, and we will still have an opportunity to create a space for everyone,” added Buck. "So there is potential for us to find another space, the third space could be anywhere, that’s kind of the concept anyway. But we'd love to continue to pursue this space."
