FILE: Danielle Torres walks her dog through Seven Canyons Fountain in Liberty Park in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017. (Laura Seitz, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — Changes are coming to the Seven Canyons Fountain in Salt Lake City’s Liberty Park. After a feasibility study and comments from the public, the fountain will become a ‘dry art feature.’
“Seven Canyons Fountain has been an iconic fixture for many residents in Salt Lake City for three decades,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall in a press release.
“While I’m sad it is not feasible to restore it, I’m pleased we’ll be able to preserve it for future generations in an updated form.”
When it was originally conceived, architects of the Seven Canyons Fountain in Salt Lake City’s Liberty Park wanted to give visitors a chance to walk through all of Salt Lake City’s canyons. Officials closed the fountain in 2017 for health and maintenance issues.
According to city officials, their study found that restoring the fountain with flowing water could cost as much as $4 million. Then there’s the other issue, namely, the 21,000 gallons of water the fountain would use each day.
The city said they’ll use specialty concrete finishes for the new project. They will reportedly “show the streams and landscape elements as symbolic of the different water streams and canyons they represent.”
Currently, groupings of rocks represent the mountains and canyons along the Wasatch Front. Architects originally intended the flowing water to visualize the rivers and creeks that flowed out of the canyons.
There is no word yet on when work on the fountain will begin.