Salt Lake County closer to moving operations with legislative effort

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Salt Lake County plans to move operations to Midvale's former Overstock headquarters.
The Utah House unanimously approved HB55, allowing county offices outside the county seat.
The move aims to save taxpayer money and improve public access by 2026.

MIDVALE — Salt Lake County is another step closer to moving its operations to Overstock's old headquarters next year.

The Utah House of Representatives voted unanimously Monday to approve HB55, a bill that would allow a county to "maintain additional office space" in an area outside of the county's seat.

"All it says is it allows them to conduct business and have offices outside the county seat," Rep. Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, the bill's sponsor, said before the vote.

Dunnigan explained that Salt Lake City has always been the county seat, but the county recently ran into a need to move and found its best option outside of Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake County leaders announced last month they had finalized a deal to acquire Beyond, Inc.'s corporate office in Midvale for $52 million, intending to move county operations into the 9-year-old building sometime in 2026. It came as the county determined renovations of its current 40-year-old facility at the corner of 2100 South and State Street would likely exceed $225 million.

The impending move "saves taxpayers money while also improving customer service and public access," Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson explained after the deal was finalized. The building is located near I-15's 7200 South exit and the Bingham Junction TRAX station.

While Dunnigan's bill was created with Salt Lake County in mind, he said Monday, it could be applied elsewhere.

"It's permissive; it doesn't require any county to do it, but it allows it if they want," he added.

The measure passed, without much discussion, to the Utah Senate. If approved by the Utah Legislature by the end of March 7, it would go into effect in May — well before the county's planned move.

As for Salt Lake County's outgoing facility, officials said last month they'd start a "review process" of the property to determine its future.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.