Sugar House Park

The Sugar House Park Authority will sponsor and coordinate its popular Fourth of July Fireworks Show on Saturday, July 4, 2009. The magnificent fireworks display, again produced by Vortex Productions, will begin at 10 p.m. and continue for a half-hour. Prior to the fireworks, the Salt Lake Symphonic Winds will return to perform for the earlier arrivals, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Handicapped parking for the event is available in the Central Terrace parking lot.

The Park Authority would like to remind all attendees that use of personal fireworks in the Park is prohibited. Also, due to construction of the new football field at Highland High School, there is a small change in the launch site and the fallout zone for the fireworks this year. The fallout zone will extend beyond the Park's fence-line with Highland High and into the Park, across the park road and onto the grassy area to the east of the soccer field. Thus, no parking will be allowed on the park road from the bridge over Parley's Creek to where the road curves uphill toward the Garden Center building, and this section of road will be closed during the fireworks. And please heed the fallout-zone boundary markers; nobody is allowed inside this area.

The Sugar House Park Authority, choosing to allocate its sparse available funds to needed Park improvements in the coming years, has decided that the 2009 Fourth of July fireworks show is the last one that the Park Authority will fund and coordinate.

The decision, which the Park Authority’s Board of Trustees approved at its April meeting without a dissenting vote, will enable the Park Authority to focus its resources on capital improvement projects that are identified in the Sugar House Park Master Plan, which the board approved a year and a half ago.

The Master Plan addressed several areas of need in the Park’s 40-plus-year-old infrastructure, most notably its seven terraces and three restrooms. Although the needed upgrades will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Park Authority intends to chip away at the list with its available revenues, while it begins to plan a capital campaign to raise funding for these improvements.

Apart from the annual cost of operating and maintaining the Park, which represents more than 85 percent of the Park Authority budget and which is covered each year by equal allocations from Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, the Park Authority has a modest annual revenue stream of about $50,000 that is derived mostly from reservation fees. It is the revenue from this source that can be put back into the Park for capital needs.

However, a high percentage of that revenue has instead been put into the Fourth of July fireworks event each year (the Park Authority has been funding this event for the better part of the last two decades). The net cost of the fireworks show in 2009 represents about 60 percent of the Park’s non-dedicated revenue; that figure is expected to approach 100 percent in 2010.

The all-volunteer Park Authority board believes it can no longer sacrifice the opportunity to upgrade the Park’s infrastructure in favor of the annual fireworks show, popular as it is. This is especially true in the current economic climate, in which the availability of capital funding, both public and private, for such projects has become increasingly scarce.

The Sugar House Park Authority, which owns and operates the Park through a 1957 trust agreement with Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, understands the tradition that has developed with this event. The Park Authority board will remain open to the use of the Park for a similar Fourth of July event in the future, provided that any proposed event adhere to the standards that have guided the Park Authority for the last two decades – that the event remain non-commercial, free and open to the public.

June 26, 2009

The Salt Lake Valley Health Department will again conduct Household Hazardous Waste Collections in Sugar House Park this summer. The pickups will be in the Garden Center parking lot (1602 East 2100 South) from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. on the fourth Thursday of the summer months – June 25, July 23, and August 27. Household wastes like paint, oil, yard-care chemicals, antifreeze and batteries will be collected. Also, Salt Lake City Police will collect unwanted or expired pharmaceuticals for incineration. Please note that wastes may not be left in the Park outside of that three-hour morning window (7-10 a.m.) on collection days.

The Sugar House Park Authority, in conjunction with Tree Utah, is offering individuals the opportunity to honor family or friends by donating a tree to be planted in Sugar House Park. The Commemorative and Memorial Tree Program will be administered by TreeUtah, which will arrange for the purchase and planting of the donated trees (a memorial tree will cost $300). Trees requested by Sept. 7, 2009, will be planted in the Park on Saturday, Sept. 19. For more information, call TreeUtah (801-364-2122).

The Sugar House Park Authority has remained focused on the Sugar House Park Master Plan, which was developed in 2007 and approved by the Park Authority board in January 2008. In the year and a half since then, the Park Authority has either completed or at least addressed 62 percent of the 79 recommendations that were made in the Master Plan. But much remains to be done, including all the major capital improvement projects, and the Park Authority will be concentrating on these improvements in the coming years.

A copy of the final master plan can be downloaded here: SHPA Master Plan - SHPA_MPLANFinal.pdf Please note that the file is 10 megabytes and may take some time to download depending on your connection speed.