The Great Salt Lake Data Center Fight

A project pitched as “the future” is running straight through the most sensitive nerve in Utah: the Great Salt Lake. I break down the latest developments in the proposed O’Leary Digital data center campus in Hansel Valley, including the procedural twist that has people fired up. After thousands of formal protests, the developers withdrew a water-rights application, then immediately refiled under House Bill 60, a new Utah law that narrows what can be considered in water-rights protests. If you’ve been trying to follow the story, this is the part that makes the stakes feel more urgent, not less.

I also share what I’m hearing and seeing around the public response: the Capitol rally, the petition delivered to Governor Spencer Cox’s office, and the growing call for independent environmental review and genuine public comment. Utah has spent years and huge amounts of money trying to rescue the Great Salt Lake, so the tension between sacrifice and unchecked growth is not going away anytime soon. Even if permitting takes years, the fight over whether this project should exist at all is happening right now.

Then we shift to the stuff that hits closer to home day-to-day: Chow Bao Bao is closing both of its Salt Lake City locations, a tough loss for anyone who loved that tiny space and the food coming out of it. We also talk Temple Square’s Visitors Center reopening and why the new, more open visitor experience matters for downtown, no matter where you stand religiously. To wrap up, I run through quick city updates on the Utah Jazz draft conversation, new affordable housing momentum in Ballpark, homeownership funding, and an early reminder that Utah fire season is already here.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What is up, everybody, and welcome back to another weekly update. I am your host, Eric Nilsen of the Small Lake City Podcast. We are now in the thick of May, uh, the kind of time where it's warm enough to eat outside, the mountains are gorgeous, and there's enough things going on outside and around town to keep you busy as you'd ever want to be. So this week we're going to cover a couple things from updates in the Stratus Project data center that's escalating quickly. There's some new developments to make the whole situation feel even more urgent. We've got a restaurant closure to talk about, and then an update in Temple Square and its reopening of the temple and the tours that are coming up soon. But before we do, I want to talk about last week's episode. It was a vault episode with Adam Barker, who is a photographer and founder of a company called Bolt Skin and Shave, based here in Salt Lake City. He's one of those people who moves very quietly through the city, but does genuinely excellent work. Everybody loves him, both behind the lens and behind the brand. So if you've never heard his story, it's a great one. Go back and give it a listen. It's a good one to put on during a walk, drive, clean, whatever you might be doing. But okay, let's jump into the first story that we have for this week. Um, it's something we've been covering for a few weeks now, but it's moving fast and there's some new developments worth getting into. So, quick recap if you're just catching up. O'Leary Digital, backed by Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank, is proposing a 40,000-acre data center campus in Hansel Valley in Box Elder County, right next to the Great Salt Lake. It would be powered by up to nine gigawatts of natural gas, more than double Utah's entire current energy consumption. It got rushed through the approval by the Box Elder County Commission and the state's military installation development authority with very little

Weekly Update And What’s Ahead

SPEAKER_00 1:39

public process, and people here in Utah have been furious about it ever since. So here's what's new this week. First, and this is kind of a wild procedural move, after 4,000 Utahans filed formal protests against the first water rights application for the project, the developers just withdrew it. They pulled the application entirely, which sounds like a win, right? Except they immediately filed a second application. And here's the kicker. A new state law called House Bill 60 just took effect on May 6th, and it significantly narrows what the state engineer is allowed to consider when reviewing waterright protests. Under the old law, broad public welfare concerns, including impacts to the Great Salt Lake, could be weighed. Under the new law, much more limited. So by withdrawing and refiling after HP 60 took effect, opponents say the developers effectively reset the clock and did it under friendlier rules. The protest period for the second application closed on May 20th. Second, last Thursday, a few hundred people rallied on the steps of the Utah State Capitol and delivered a petition signed

Stratus Data Center Urgency Rises

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by over 7,000 Utah's to Governor Cox's office, demanding independent environmental reviews and real public comment. Chance of no more data center echoed through the Capitol, signs, mermaids, yes, you heard me right, mermaids. It was definitely a lot. And third, new renderings of the project dropped this week, and developers confirmed the permitting process alone could take years. So this isn't going up tomorrow, but the fight over whether it ever goes up at all is very much alive. The part of the story that I keep coming back to, Utah has spent more than a billion dollars and years of advocacy trying to rescue the Great Salt Lake. Farmers gave up water, homeowners ripped out lawns, real sacrifice from real people trying to save something irreplaceable. And now a private company with a celebrity face is asking us to just trust them that a project of this scale will be fine for the lake, with no independent environmental review, no real public process, and a new state law that just made it harder for regular people to push back. That tension isn't going away. This story is going to be with us for a while. Alright, and this one stings a little, but if you've ever been in line on 500 South for a steamed bow and thought, yes, this is exactly what I needed, this story's for you. Chow Bao Bao, the beloved bow shop in downtown Salt Lake, announced this week that it's closing both of its locations. The owners shared the news on Instagram. No big statement, no drama, just a quiet announcement that hit the local food community pretty hard. For context, Chow Bao Bao was founded by Romina Rasmussen, who many of you might know from Le Madeline, one of the most respected bakeries the city has ever had. Along with her brothers Derek and Dwight Yi, they opened the original location at 216 East 500 South in 2023, in the same space where La Madeline used to live. And just back in January this year, they opened a second location. So the timing here is rough, less than five months between opening a second spot and announcing they're shutting everything down. The food itself was genuinely special. These weren't just any bow, they were deeply personal, rooted in the team's own background and travels, blending Chilean heritage and traditional Chinese technique in ways that felt original and thoughtful. The Coconut Custard Bow had basically a cult following. The space was tiny and charming and exactly the kind of place that makes a food scene feel real. We don't have a reason for the closure yet. The owners haven't shared details. What I will say is that the restaurant industry in Salt Lake City right now is genuinely hard. Costs are up, foot traffic is unpredictable, and a lot of beloved spots have struggled even when the food is excellent. This one hurts, and if you haven't been, there still may be time. Go find out if they're still serving before the doors close. Next up, this one is one of those things that affects the city regardless of where you stand religiously, because Temple Square is just central to what Salt Lake is. The

Chow Bao Bao Shuts Down

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Temple Square Visitors Center officially reopened to the public this past Monday, May 18th. No ticket required, open every day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. And from what everyone who's been through it this week is saying, it's genuinely impressive. The new center's two stories, fully immersive, and includes something the church has never done before: a walkthrough experience of what the inside of the temple actually looks like. Full-scale replicas of the celestial room, a baptistry, a ceiling room. For most people, member or not, that is unprecedented access. There's also a scaled cutaway model of the Salt Lake Temple itself, plus the classic Christus statue, gardens with bronze sculptures, and the whole thing is designed to be open and welcoming to everyone, not just members. This is the big milestone building up to the Salt Lake Temple celebration, the grand reopening of the temple itself, which is scheduled to run from April 5th through October 1st of 2027. Free reservations to tour the temple will open September 1st of this year. Whatever your relationship with the LDS church is, and in the city, that relationship runs the full spectrum. This is a significant moment downtown. Temple Square has been under construction for years. The scaffolding has been part of the skyline for so long that it started to feel permanent. Seeing it come back to life, and with this kind of openness, that matters for the city, worth going to check out even if just once. Now let's go through a few other stories that are happening around the city. One, the jazz and their number two pick situation continues to dominate local sports conversation. Most analysts this week are landing on Darren Peterson out of Kansas as the likely pick. A shock creating guard with some scouts think is better long-term bet over DeBanza anyway.

Temple Square Reopens To Visitors

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And here's a subplot nobody can stop talking about. Carlos Boozer, yes, that Carlos Boozer, former Jazz legend, is currently on Utah Scouting staff. Meaning, if the Jazz even consider taking his son, Cameron Boozer, out of Duke at number two, that's a conversation that writes itself. The draft is June 23rd, and this city is going to be obsessed with this for the next month. A new development called the Winston, 154 affordable units, got a building permit filed in the ballpark neighborhood this week at 1485 South 300 West. Family-sized units, which is exactly what the city keeps saying it needs more of. Ballpark is having a moment right now, development-wise. I will continue to keep an eye on developments in that neighborhood. The Salt Lake City Community Reinvestment Agency approved nearly $6.4 million in funding for affordable homeownership projects this week, covering townhomes, single-family homes, and down payment assistance tools. It's part of a broader push to not just build rental housing, but to actually help lower and moderate income households own something in the city. And that's a meaningful distinction. And finally, the wild horse fire that started out near Boxhelder County last week has been fully contained after burning more than 7,000 acres. No structures lost that we know of, but it was a reminder that fire season in Utah is real and it's here. Next week I'm sitting down with Rosie Card. She's a content creator and writer who has built a really powerful platform around women's rights, identity, and what life looks like after leaving the LDS Church. She was as deep in it as a person

Jazz Draft Talk And City Updates

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can possibly be, and then she wasn't. And she's talked about that journey with a level of honesty and grace that I genuinely respect. In a city where that experience is everywhere and yet rarely talked about openly, this conversation feels necessary. Really looking forward to you listening into this one. So that's it for this week's weekly update. Thanks for being here as always. If this show means something to you, please share it with someone you know. Send it to someone who cares about this city, leave a review wherever you listen. It makes a real difference for me, and follow along everywhere at Small Lake Pod, and I will see you next week.