When the City Creek Center opens next year, it will have been one of the most heavily touted and anticipated retail developments in Utah history.
For that reason and more, the estimated $1 billion mixed-use project is also one of the most unique projects as well, according to the chief operating officer of the company who will be accountable for running it.
Bill Taubman is responsible for development, operations and leasing for Taubman Centers Inc. He also serves as a director of the company.
Looking back on his more than 20 years in the industry, he said City Creek Center has already distinguished itself as one of the more distinctive developments the company has ever been involved with.
"This is a classic mixed-use urban project," he said. "It represents the best of the design ideas that are around today."
Related View of City Creek Center shows its progress A panoramic view of progress at the City Creek Center development in 2009. Taubman was in Utah Wednesday to attend a Salt Lake Chamber event to honor Bishop H. David Burton, presiding bishop of the LDS Church, as a "Giant in Our City."
Headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Taubman Centers Inc. currently operates 26 retail shopping centers across the country, with six others in development — including properties in Asia and Puerto Rico.
Upon completion, City Creek will feature approximately 800,000 square feet of shopping and dining space. Among the unique attributes of the 23-acre development that will include a mix of residences, retail and office space, will be a fully retractable glass roof, a sky bridge over Main Street and a realistic re-creation of City Creek, the snow-fed stream that once coursed through the city.
The retail center will anchor the property's master plan developed by City Creek Reserve, Inc. — a real estate subsidiary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He said while the company has developed shopping center projects for more than 50 years, "We've never built a project quite like this."
The fact that the project will function as both an indoor and outdoor retail center makes it truly "one of a kind" in the company's vast property portfolio.
"I think it's the only project in America that's been built with a retractable roof that really works," Taubman said. Considering the unique and innovative design attributes of the project that complement the urban living components also included in the historic development, he said the downtown area will blossom in a way never before seen in Salt Lake City.
"(City Creek Center) will create a three dimensionality that doesn't exist today," Taubman said.
THey claim the money for this project didn't come from tithing, but it is all blood money that come from someone, in the begining.
The morg has built the biggest most useless buildings of any religion in the last 40 years and has given chump change to charity. Stupid cult. Hope the whole f-ing project goes under.
This mall looks to be a white elephant for the crutch. Its cost overruns have been dramatic. The maintenance of the place will be pricey. And how many retailers will rush in to pay the high lease rates? Perhaps members will be volunteered to help clean the "Lord's" maul.
The reason they are quoting the cost as $1 billion is because that is how much the Church is losing on the project.
The actual cost of construction etc will be up at the $3 billion mark, but they are projecting that monies will be recouped by leasing space and selling condo's.
If all the space is leased and all the condo's purchased City Creek will still cost the Church $1 billion - that sounds like a loss making project to me.
City Creek Reserve inc. is a subsidiary of the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop, which is a subsidiary of the Corporation of the President of the Church. City Creek Reserve is a real estate investment firm, just one of the many for-profit businesses owned by the Corporation.
Actually, urban redevelopment from the top down has been tried elsewhere and failed. Like Tacoma, Washington, for example. No matter how many fancy condos and constructions you make, no matter how Disneylandish, unique, or unusual, history has shown they do NOT revitalize a downtown which has gone to the druggies and the prostitutes.
The answer is simple, but it is one that elite simply cannot comprehend: it is the little people that give a downtown its "vitality." The upper class which is consuming our nation, not just Salt Lake City, has complete contempt for the working class. It exploits them shamelessly (see Jesus Wants You for a Janitor) and cares nothing about their future or their children's education (see Granite School District restructured so wealthy can keep their money on the East side).
I lived in Washington and watched a marvelously successful urban renewal take place in Seattle, guided by non-inspired municipal leaders who cared about the "health" of the community for all socio-economic levels.
I cannot help but believe that the City Creek decision was based on fear. Fear of losing control of downtown and seeing Salt Lake age and seeing derelicts on the streets. It reminds me of an aging movie star who goes for a catastrophic plastic surgery and comes out of it unrecognizable.
The saddest thing is that these so-called keepers-of-the-flame didn't value the irreplaceable. They had an opportunity to adopt a 50's theme and keep a downtown that would be a unique draw to millions who would want to see what America looked like when it really was free. Instead, they have chosen to pander to the wealthiest travelers (who will be Chinese) and give them a synthetic meaningless shopping experience with a fake creek in a fake Salt Lake City.
That's fine, it's consistent. It fits with their fake religion and fake "authority." The whole thing will be a symbol of American excess--a temple of credit card purchasing and a monument to the true values of the Church of Lease & Price of Better Day Sales.
Wait-- lemme get this straight. The City of Salt Lake City actually paved over a creek that ran through the city, developed over it, and now this development company is building a fake creek -- just like the real one we killed ! -- inside the mall?
I think I just hurt myself rolling my eyes that hard.