FLASHBACK 2001: The Flower Patch store stands as a holdout to Earl Holding's Grand America plans. 

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In commemoration of City Weekly's 40th anniversary, we are digging into our archives to celebrate. Each week, we FLASHBACK to a story or column from our past in honor of four decades of local alt-journalism. Whether the names and issues are familiar or new, we are grateful to have this unique newspaper to contain them all.

Title: Holding Out
Author: Nesreen Khashan
Date: May 3, 2001

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The Grand America, glistening with grandeur, consumes nearly the entire block from 500 South to 600 South between State and Main Streets.

Yet in some ways it isn't the main attraction on that block. Dowdy on the outside, fragrant on the inside, the Flower Patch floral store on 502 S. State Street stands as a glaring reminder that Earl Holding—who owns more land in downtown Salt Lake City than anyone besides the LDS Church—didn't quite get everything he wanted.

Holding, through his company Sinclair Oil, developed the palatial Grand America Hotel across the street from his Little America Hotel. On the corner where the Flower Patch stands, Holding had once envisioned building a 12-story executive guest tower. Those plans were scrapped in July 1996 when the real estate mogul asked the city to cease a controversial redevelopment zone project.

That decision marked the end of a more-than-two-year war between Sinclair and local franchise flower shop owner Greg Parrish. Five years later, the flower shop, housed in an almost 100-year-old building, is still around, and The Grand America, which opened in March, is nearly complete.

Parrish no longer owns the flower shop business, but still owns the land. In January 1999, he sold the store and 11 other Flower Patch shops across the Valley to Gerald Stevens Co. The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based floral shop-corporation built its empire by gobbling up independently owned stores across the country.

With new developments and historic upgrades springing up on many downtown streets, the Flower Patch store is in contrast an anomaly to the spanking new buildings on the rest of its block. Cracked windows are held together with pressed wood and electrical tape; rusted pipes run down its sides. Chipped wood lines its window-panes and peeling paint runs along its masonry. And city officials say as far as they know there are no plans in the near future to spruce up the store's building.

Clint Ensign, a spokesman for Sinclair, declined to comment on the flower shop at all. Greg Royer, chief operating officer in charge of retail, said Gerald Stevens has no plans to sink hundreds of thousands of dollars into a building it doesn't even own. The onus to upgrade, Royer said, should fall on Parrish. Parrish, however, contends the building sits in disrepair because money he was going to spend upgrading it nearly a decade ago was instead reserved for fighting off Sinclair in a legal battle.

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"It cost us $250,000 in legal fees to fight off Sinclair," Parrish said. "It wasn't like we never intended to do anything to that corner. That was our flagship store at the time and there was no reason to keep it looking in a dilapidated state. Problem was, we weren't going to put a lot of money into it with imminent domain hanging over our head."

Instead, Parrish said during that period he diverted some $400,000 in upgrade money toward building two new stores, one in West Valley City and another in West Jordan.

In 1993, the city's Redevelopment Agency (RDA) initiated a study that eventually had Parrish's property and much of the rest of the block declared a blighted area. With that designation, the city could then use its powers of imminent domain to condemn the properties and buy the businesses.

From the start, Parrish and Stuart Nelson, who leased his property next door to the Flower Patch to Safelite Glass, cried foul. In 1996 the two property owners took the city's Redevelopment Agency to court, claiming it had acted improperly when it talked with Sinclair Oil about its project long before "blighting" their property. Before the courts could settle the dispute, Sinclair told the city it no longer would pursue obtaining the controversial redevelopment area status.

While the blight status and the threat of condemnation encouraged most of the block's other property owners to sell out, Parrish said he would not budge.

That history continues to haunt Parrish, who says public sentiment at the time leaned heavily toward Holding. The perception was, according to Parrish, that he was being greedy by not yielding to Holding's attempts to buy his land.

"I was called everything from unpatriotic to unreasonable," Parrish recalls. "I wasn't opposed to the building of that hotel. We just objected to someone seizing our property and giving us nothing for the business," he said, referring to his fear that condemnation proceedings would allow the city to purchase the property well below its market value.

Parrish recalls Sinclair independently making offers to buy his property, but none exceeded $250,000, far below the $420,000 price he paid for the parcel in 1985.

It's been hard to clear his name with his property standing out of character with the rest of the block, he said. With Gerald Stevens Co. unwilling to fund an upgrade, Parrish isn't sure the building will ever get the makeover it clearly needs. However, he says rumors still abound that Holding allegedly plans to buy that last corner on the block. Those rumors proved false, but Mac Livingston, who operates the Flower Patch regional office in Murray, said he was concerned enough to call Gerald Stevens' corporate offices in Florida. Even after the company assured him that they had no plans to sell the business, he said he remained a bit wary.

Dick Turpin, acting executive director of the city's RDA, wasn't in charge during the days when that block almost became a project for his agency, but he does seem to echo the perception of Parrish that held sway during those early days.

"Mr. Parrish, as I recall, isn't particularly enamoured by redevelopment," Turpin suggested of the chance that the city would encourage the landowner and Gerald Stevens to fix up the property.

"That building has been there for a long time and just because Mr. Holding chose to build a new hotel on that block, I can't imagine that it should have any impact on the flower shop," Turpin said.