SALT LAKE CITY — The Redevelopment Agency of Salt Lake City has decided to move forward with a $2 million loan to a popular climbing gym after it put the loan on “pause” earlier this year amid a rift between the gym’s owner and Climbing USA, which is also looking to build a climbing gym in the city.
Agency officials said they wrapped up “additional due diligence” on the Front Climbing Club and determined to move forward with the loan.
“We have sent the applicant the loan documents for review and are working toward closing and funding,” the agency added in a statement to KSL.com on Friday.
The Redevelopment Agency’s board — members of the Salt Lake City Council — initially authorized the loan late last year to help the business complete the first three phases of a four-part expansion plan. The popular climbing gym opened in Salt Lake City’s Ballpark neighborhood in 1998 and the three new phases are expected to add about 70,000 square feet.
But the city agency put the loan on “pause” in January over comments its owner, Dustin Buckthal, made to Climbing USA that it deemed were “incompatible with the public benefits and community-building we aim to support.”
Climbing USA is planning a new headquarters less than 10 blocks from the Front. Buckthal and other company executives sent Climbing USA a letter days before the loan was approved, opposing the portion of the project that would include a large commercial gym within the facility.
“(The) proposed commercial gym is a direct threat to the local businesses that have long supported (USA Climbing) and the local Utah communities,” the group wrote.
Buckthal told KSL.com in January he was unaware the Redevelopment Agency had been engaging in land lease talks with Climbing USA at the same time he had applied for the loan. The lease would keep the governing body in the Rio Grande District for at least 99 years.
He believed the pause was retaliation for the Front’s opposition to Climbing USA’s commercial gym. RDA director Danny Walz sent Buckthal a letter informing him of the loan pause, Walz wrote that Buckthal had “taken steps to quash the expansion of USA Climbing.”
Amanda Greenland, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in January the review would focus on a portion of the loan application that “cited strong growth potential in the local climbing market.” She said the agency believed the letter to USA Climbing may have contradicted that statement.
It wasn’t immediately clear what was reviewed since January, but Redevelopment Agency officials said they believe there was “enough financial stability” to move forward with offering the loan, despite “future market competition.”
KSL.com reached out to Buckthal for comment on the Redevelopment Agency’s decision to unpause the loan, but did not get a response.
