The Inn at Temple Square
The Inn at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, has housed wedding-night romance, fed the likes of Gladys Knight and Angela Lansbury and given scores of people employment at a job they loved.
When the last guest checks out today, the inn will close forever.
After 75 years at 71 W. South Temple, the inn is set to be the first building demolished as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes way for City Creek Center, a mixed-use shopping, retail and office development aimed at revitalizing the blocks currently occupied by the languishing Crossroads Plaza and ZCMI Center.
The inn opened in 1931 as the Hotel Temple Square, but it wasn't until it was renovated 16 years ago and reopened as the Inn at Temple Square that it became popular as a "home away from home," said Neil Wilkinson, director of marketing for Temple Square Hospitality Corp., which runs the inn.
Prior to the renovation, the Hotel Temple Square was "kind of a hostel-hotel," with 200 small rooms that were "easy for a nice, quick stay. But the inn, converted into a more Victorian style with only 90 rooms, became more of an experience than just a place to stay.
Calls to preserve the inn have been overshadowed by a more concerted effort to stop the planned demolition of the historic First Security/Deseret Bank building, which the church and its development partners are now reconsidering. But the inn has also had its proponents.
The church has applied for its demolition permit for the building, and Goff said it has been approved by four of the six agencies whose permission is required.
The looming demolition has led hundreds of people to try to book one last stay.
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