City Creek Center
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The City Creek Center is a $1 billion shopping center development under construction near Temple Square in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. It is an undertaking by Property Reserve, Inc. (the commercial real estate division of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and Taubman Centers, Inc. Plans for the center call for shopping and residential elements, complimented by foliage-lined walkways and a stream. The City Creek Center is scheduled to be complete in 2011.
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[edit] History
The City Creek Center began to develop in 2003, when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) purchased the Crossroads Plaza Mall, a shopping center on the other side of Main Street from the ZCMI Center Mall, which it already owned. Both malls (known unofficially as the “Main Street Malls”) had been constructed in the 1970s and had begun to drop in sales figures by the late 1990s as a result of competition from rival centers in Salt Lake City’s suburbs. In 2001, the Boyer Company completed its new open-air Gateway Mall several blocks to the west of Crossroads and ZCMI, drawing even more business away from Main Street. Soon after, the Nordstrom store at Crossroads announced its intentions to leave the mall and open a new store at Gateway. When the owners of the mall proved unable and unwilling to persuade the store to stay on Main Street, the LDS Church decided in 2003 to purchase the mall and redevelop the area in an effort to revitalize downtown Salt Lake City and keep the properties surrounding the church’s world headquarters at Temple Square economically vibrant. The church enlisted the help of nationally renowned mall developer Taubman Centers to help it redesign the malls into a single project and recruit retailers to fill it. In October of 2006, the concept design of City Creek Center was announced.
[edit] Overall Design and Transportation
The City Creek Center will feature an open-air design, similar to the competing Gateway Mall. The mall is intended to cater predominantly to pedestrian traffic. Multi-level sidewalks will feature six total acres of green space, fountains, and a stream. A pedestrian skyway is planned to link the two city blocks across Main Street. The site will continue to be serviced by the City Center station of the TRAX light rail system, and large underground parking structures will enable access by car.
[edit] Retail
The City Creek Center will be anchored by three national department stores: Nordstrom, Macy's, and Dillard's. Nordstrom will have a two-story, 124,000 sq. ft. store and Macy’s and Dillard’s will each occupy three-story stores of 150,000 sq. ft. It is rare if not unique for the three large department chains to be simultaneously opening new stores in a downtown mall. There will also be approximately 300,000 sq. ft. of additional retail space for specialty stores, and a new Harmon's grocery store will be constructed nearby as well.
[edit] Office
Several existing office buildings in the area will maintain their positions in the City Creek Center development. The Key Bank Tower, however, will be demolished, and its tenants will be relocated to the Beneficial Financial Group Tower nearby, which will then be renamed the Key Bank Tower. That building’s chief tenant will be relocated to the Gateway Tower West, which will then be renamed as the new Beneficial Financial Group Tower. The old First Security Bank Building will be demolished, as it is no longer structurally sound, and will be replaced by a new office tower on that site.
[edit] Residential
Approximately 300 housing units, consisting of condos and apartments, will be built into the new City Creek Center. They will be located in at least five residential towers, one of which is planned to be 30-35 stories tall. They will principally be built along 100 South Street, with some constructed along South Temple Street as well – including a fairly large tower to replace the demolished Inn at Temple Square.
[edit] Demolition and Construction
Demolition of the site’s old structures commenced in November of 2006. By February of 2007, the Inn at Temple Square had been completely demolished and work was underway to demolish the old parking structure for the Crossroads Plaza Mall. The destruction is scheduled to proceed across the site from west to east, with several businesses remaining open until a short time before their scheduled demolition. Macy’s and Nordstrom had both closed by early February 2007. Demolition should be finished by the end of 2007, and will be followed by another year of excavation and site preparation. Most of the City Creek Center is scheduled to be complete in the year 2011.
[edit] Trivia
- The $1 to $1.5 billion price tag cited for the City Creek Center is more than the cost to build most of the resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. The Bellagio was reported to have cost $1.6 billion. Critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints frequently express dismay that a non-profit church uses funds that are ultimately tithing donations to build a for-profit shopping mall instead of using the funds for charitable purposes.
