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A highly anticipated rebuild of a senior center at 868 West 900 South was on its way to fruition when a whistleblower complaint derailed the award and is causing Salt Lake County to repeat its search process for a development partner.
Plans are for the one-story, 15,000-square-foot Sunday Anderson Senior Center to give way to a mixed-use project that would enlarge the center to 24,000 square feet and add “affordable residential housing aimed at the aging population,” in the words of the request for proposals (RFP).
A year-long process was culminating as three finalists were chosen for the interview stage in early March. The award was made soon thereafter on the 15th. It was rescinded just a week later by Mayor Jenny Wilson at the recommendation of the District Attorney.
What was so cut and dried to elicit such a decisive response from higher-ups? Let’s take a look at the controversy created by the County’s procurement process.
The RFP
The priorities for the project aim at creating an impressive development on its 1.41 acres, zoned RMF-35, on the border of Salt Lake City’s Poplar Grove and Glendale neighborhoods.
Besides the programming one would expect in a senior center like an art studio, fitness rooms, meeting spaces, a kitchen, a billiards room, and classrooms, the RFP also stipulates inclusion of a café, as well as “childcare services and/or retail spaces that are currently lacking in the [west side] neighborhood.”
And that’s not all: housing is to be included. $11 million of public funds are, or were potentially available to the winning development team, provided affordable housing targets were met. The Salt Lake City RDA “intends to contribute $2 million” and the County’s Office of Regional Development had signaled it had $3.4 million of federal ARPA funds that the project could aim for.
Those funds would need to be applied for, and it’s not altogether clear whether they would still be available to the winner of the next RFP process. The County has socked away $5.6 million for the senior center’s rebuild.
The County plans to keep ownership of the land through a long-term land-lease with the developers. In the spirit of public-private partnership, “the County will collaborate with developers on a mutually beneficial financial structure,” the RPF stated.
The respondents
Building Salt Lake has learned through a public records request that three finalists made it to the interview stage.
They included:
- Housing Authority of Salt Lake City, a non-profit
- Utah Community Action, also a non-profit, partnered with Designed.By.Women, a firm linked with Melissa Jensen and Chris Parker of Giv Development
- Brinshore Development, a Chicago-area based developer which has won RFPs with the Salt Lake City RDA for the SPARK! development at 1500 W. North Temple as well as the Aster at 255 S. State, both of which contain sizable affordable housing elements.
We were unable to acquire the three proposals, due to their shielding from GRAMA requests due to the propriety interests of the development teams.
The project was awarded on March 15 to the Utah Community Action/Designed.By.Women team.
On the 23rd, the Director of Contracts & Procurement, Jason Yocom, sent an apologetic email to the County’s selection committee that the RFP process had been canceled.
The selection committee
The 10-member committee, described by Yocom in his email as “diverse,” was chaired by his No. 2, Teresa Young. It included members from nine county departments, whose names Yocom told us were being “kept secret.”
One of those departments, we learned, was Human Services, which had recently hired a new director, Kelly Colopy.
Colopy returned to the County in the Spring of 2023 after the retirement of Human Services Director Karen Crompton, a former Democratic state legislator.
Colopy had served as Crompton’s Associate Director, and in 2013 moved to Long Beach, CA city government as Human Services Director there.
Upon return to Salt Lake County government, she became a Board Member of Utah Community Action–the winner of the RPF award.
The conflict of interest
Colopy, who did not respond to our request for comment, disclosed her board membership on the Procurement department’s conflict of interest form.
But she downplayed its importance, arguing that her recent appointment and recusal from Board discussions on the topic shouldn’t create a conflict.
“I am a new member of the board for Utah Community Action – one of the proposers,” Colopy wrote on her disclosure form. “I have attended one meeting for introduction purposes and recused myself from any conversations regarding the housing/sr center project and this proposal to ensure no conflict.”
Young, Selection Committee Chair, and Yocom, Director of Contracts & Procurement, were apparently satisfied with that argument.
That didn’t convince the whistleblower – who Yocom told us was linked to one of the losing development teams.
“The loser back-doored a whistleblower complaint, it went to the Attorney’s Office and they recommended to the Mayor that the award be canceled,” Yocom told us.
We we unable to confirm that the source of the complaint was the Housing Authority of Salt Lake City or Brinshore Development. Regardless, the weight of the complaint caused rapid action at county headquarters at 2001 S. State.
The time between the award and the cancellation? One week.
“Obviously, in hindsight, leaving her on the committee provided an unfortunate opening for someone unhappy with the committee’s award to take measures to get the procurement scrapped,” Yocom said. “That said, we all learned a lot from this experience and look forward to having an unimpeachable process next time.”
No date for a new RFP release has been decided on, Yocom said. His office is waiting for the go-ahead from other departments.
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