SALT LAKE CITY — About six and a half months ago, the historic Fifth Ward meetinghouse was partially demolished by the owner without permits to do so.
It now has a new owner, and on Saturday, he and a group of volunteers started the process of sorting through the bricks, hoping to use them in the rebuild.
Skyler Baird and his nonprofit, Salt of the Earth, are behind the restoration effort.
"We're going to be bringing it back to its original 1910 look," Baird said.
The building, located at 740 S. 300 West, was originally a meetinghouse for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church later sold it, and it served a variety of purposes, ranging from a Tibetan temple to a music venue.
"It's been so many different things," said Jean LaSarre Gardner with the Urgyen Samtan Ling Gonpa Tibetan Buddhist Temple. "I would often be teaching Buddhist classes, and some guy said, 'I met my wife in the corner there when it was this, such and such a club.'"
"There's people that were here that were baptized here as an LDS church. There's people here that was a DJ when it was a nightclub. There's people here that slept here as a homeless person," Baird added.
The group of volunteers sorted the bricks on the ground by quality in three piles: "Good," "better" and "best."
"We can get this area cleaned up, make it presentable, make it safe, but also then the architects can then go in and see what can be saved and what needs to be restored," said Josh Scheuerman with the Granary District Alliance.
"Seeing the destruction was obviously, like, heartbreaking. One of the only saving graces is that the only part that was destroyed was the 1930 addition rather than the original structure," Baird said.
"This building has a lot of community energy. It draws people from the community. It can draw out the best in the community," Gardner said.
"Even though it's not a ward house anymore, just having this anchor of a historic building in the neighborhood helps champion the preservation and restoration or rehabbing of all the other buildings in this area," Scheuerman added. "When we lose part of our history, whether it's a historical site structure like this, we lose part of our heritage as a community."
The plan for the building's future includes a variety of uses. Baird said previously that the chapel portion will remain an open space that can be booked as an event venue, and the basement and classrooms will become living spaces for people in addiction recovery.
"Being able to help those type of people and see them recover has been a meaningful part of my life. Finding a home for that, that's kind of taking my little corner and turning it into something real, turning into something bigger, that we can help more people," Baird said. "Little bit of metaphors, you know — taking this building that might be a little bit broken down, but still has good bones, and turning it into something rejuvenated and something that can bring life and hope to the rest of the community."
