Convention center's financing, plans moving forward

PROVO (Daily Herald) -- The Utah County Convention Center is coming soon. Really.

To the average person who has yet to see much change to downtown Provo, specifically the block between Center Street and 100 North and 200 West and 300 West, that may seem doubtful, but planners say the behind-the-scenes work is moving forward smoothly and the rest of it will follow.

Utah County is waiting for the Provo Municipal Council to approve the use of the city's recovery bonds while also working on the engineering and design phases. County assistant public works director Don Nay said the project should go out to bid in September and construction should start soon after that.

That seems like a long time from now, but since the first meeting to discuss this convention center was in March 2003, another few months of architectural work, razing the buildings in the space and doing other prep work doesn't seem like much time at all.

"We're still in the early stages on this at this point," Commissioner Steve White said.

Assuming the Municipal Council approves the sale of bonds, the county will bond for $41 million -- $9 million from the city's recovery bonds, $18 million from the county's recovery bonds, and the additional $14 million from regular bonds. White expects those to be sold quickly once the sale opens Jan. 11.

Financially, this is a good time to move forward on this project, the planners have said numerous times. Part of that is the lower construction costs because of the recession; White said they will get about 30 percent more square footage than they would have a few years ago for the same amount of money. Additionally, the interest rates on the bonds are low, so the county will be paying less in interest.

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