To all you investors and financial whizes out there, is the City Creek Mall a good investment or will it be a colossal failure?

I'm talking long term. Will the old geezers up in their ivory towers, 10-20 years from now, regret that the church built the thing or will they be glad they did?

I don't care if it's a good investment or not. All that church money has helped the local economy big time. Any time Mormons want to spend money in any way that benefits me I'm for it.

there was this deal called ZCMI. It went like gang busters..... as long as LDS INC had death grip control on the region and it was the only deal in town. But more recently, with open free market competition, how have things been going for ZCMI lately ?

IS CCC the only mall in Salt Lake valley now ?
Is the only Mall in SLC now ? WIll ppl really feel compelled to shop at CCC and only at CCC because its located in the shadow of LDS INC headquarters?

Commercial real estate is a bust market right now. It is telling that no one else in America is building malls. With Internet shopping and Wal-Mart, who needs a cluster of ritzy retail outlets with high overhead at a crowded mall?


The mall is going the way of the drive-in movie.

The only reason that the church is still building the mall is because they have the money and can't be seen by members to go back on an "inspired" investment. All of the smart companies are getting out of the business.

I love how Mormons point to their leaders' advice on debt as a prophecy about the current economy's woes. They should have seen the mall bust coming.

Furthermore, the church is paying a ridiculous amount of money for the mall. By comparison, the Burj Dubai, the half-mile building in the UAE, cost only 1.5 billion to build. Even taking labor costs into account, I have no idea how the church is spending 4 billion dollars on the Mormon Palace at City Creek.

Loser. I knew that when GBH announced it. Malls were already going bankrupt all over the nation. Areas in Sugar House and Holliday had vacant lots full of weeds in the middle of their downtown. I foresee many boarded up and vacant store spaces throughout the mall, like the Cottonwood Mall looked before they bulldozed a hundred beautiful cottonwood trees, and straightened and re-worked the creek with boulders and gravel to make more parking space. Similarly, Downtown Salt Lake City is no more. A lot of people say they are not going to shop there. More power to the other malls!

Several of my friends had lost their shirts in SLC commercial real estate, and when Hinckley made the announcement, they couldn't believe it.

No one believed that the cost would be as low as Hinckley said it would be originally. Hinckley also lied that the money would not come out of tithing money. The Mormon Vatican was instrumental in having a lot of my friends and family leave, all at once. That, along with the gay marriage issue was a huge one-two punch to formerly faithful Mormons.

Loser, all around.

Why do even people who live in Utah think that everyone lives in the suburbs? Many of my friends who live in the Avenues or on the east side never go south of 33rd South unless they're headed to Moab, Vegas or a Real SL game.

What's going to make the new mall work where the old mall didn't? I liked the old mall. Also, the cost per square foot was about twice what the Burj in Dubai cost, and that was well-known to be a big money laundering project.

So, will City Creek be a success? Sure. The church is paying for it, and it has money to burn from its dupes all over the world who think they are donating to a religion.

O/T but isn't the Bin Laden family the largest construction fortune in the middle east? Was the Dubai mall a way to launder money to his people you think?

I just remember reading that the cost of the Burj was so high that there was obviously money laundering taking place, and that was one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world. Why would a mall in Utah cost twice that during a recession?

Anyone know how much the Mall of America cost?

That's for 5,200,000 square feet of additional space. I can't believe they're doing that. Mall of America was losing money when I lived in the Twin Cities ten years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mall_of_America

This article says City Creek Center cost $1.5 billion for 700,000 square feet of mall space plus 536 condos (say, another 700,000 square feet?). Wikipedia says $2 billion. "Mighty Builder" said $4 billion. Who really knows?

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705398244/15B-City-Creek-Center-on-schedule-for-March-22-opening.html

The Burj Khalifa was $1.5 billion for 3,331,100 square feet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2012 10:49AM by Makurosu.

where the Mighty Builder got his numbers. He might have been entirely correct, for all I know.

However, over the past several years many of the Trib reports on the cost of the project have clearly bundled the cost of CCC itself with the costs of other aspects of the "Downtown Rising" Projects. (renovation and expansion of the federal courthouse, Six Gateway, the Utah Performance Center, the Leonardo, the Questar headquarters, the Harmons City Creek, the renovation of the O.C. Tanner building, 222 South Main, etc.). Some of those projects are ongoing and some have been completed. City Creek is just the largest part of what has been a facelift of all of downtown Salt Lake over the past six years. Six years ago 222 South Main was the site of a Curry in a Hurry and a (really good) taco shop. Now it's a 22 story, 450,000 plus square foot Class A commercial building that houses the lion's share of Goldman Sachs's back office operations. Obviously, you can argue about whether that's a good thing, but what many people on RfM fail to understand (I'm not saying you're one of them) is that there is a lot more going on here than the building of a shopping mall.

Mighty Builder is an insider at one of the construction company working on the Mall. So he has the correct info on the costs.

He may have been and he may not have been. I have no idea.

No he is an insider , I know him IRL.

That's why I just went with what was in the article from the Deseret News. They said that CCC was $1.5 billion for 700,000 sq. ft. of space and 536 condos, and even with their numbers it's a joke.

The new thing now in commercial development is not a single, large mall, but a cluster of small shopping centers along a new pedestrian friendly street, all owned by the same management company. This allows customers the option of getting in and out of their favorite store, or to lounge around all day visiting various shops. Since a good deal of the shopping is outside, it also detours large groups of unwanted kids, with no money, from loitering in the halls.

Also, it makes more sense to build these big shopping centers in the suburbs. Again, downtown, in the middle of a city, will only encourage loiterers to come in, crowd up the place, and not spend any money, while chasing away those who will.

Building a large mall, is the kind of business plan dreamed up by someone who does not realize that the world has changed in the last thirty years.

The GAs have missed major cultural/technological/socail turning point time after time. How they could miss two major world wars, atomic power, space travel, computers, etc. and still call themselves prophets is beyond explaining.

I am convinced another major change in technology is just around the corner which will have as great an effect on our society as the Internet has had. Among many consequences this technology is going to change our patterns of shopping and will probably impact the viability of large, centralized malls.

In ten years we are going to have fully automatic cars that will make travel much easier, cheaper, faster, and much, much safer. When travel gets easier and cheaper, the economic motivation to centralize decreases. In ten years most malls everywhere are going to need to adapt or close.

i'm still bitter about arriving at the future and not finding personal jet packs or moon vacations...

They now own another large chunck of downtown SLC with a supposedly impressive building complex that they can turn into whatever they want it to be if it doesn't succeed as a shopping mall.

It can become the new COB if and when the time comes for them to finally renovate or tear down the great and spacious phallus. They could locate a BYU extension campus there. They could turn it into a MTC North if so needed. It could be turned into a conference and convention center.

A shopping center was only a ruse they used to protect their perceived integrity of the LDS vatican complex.

Just my opinon though.

When I visited SLC this mall was a ghost town.

Money was misspent, why not help the poor?

I give it 5 yrs max before they make it into something else.

For the life of me, I don't see how they can spin this into good PR

For five reasons:

1) They paid with cash and that cash was donated. They have no interest expense and no pesky banks or investors to repay. LDS Inc has zero cost of capital.

2) The development is a nice mixture of commercial and residential, which makes the comparison with failing suburban malls invalid.

3) Location. $5 gas is around the corner. $7-10 gas is not far behind. The model of building single family dwellings in the suburbs and commuting to the city is doomed. In the future, people will live in cities.

4) Oligopoly rents. LDS, Inc is now nearly the only landlord in the central business district. If you want to be in downtown SLC, there is only one landlord setting rents.

5) An ready made consumer-base made up of true believers that can be called upon to help. Can't pay for janitors? Call in the member troops. Can't pay for security? Call in the member troops. Can't sell those condos? Send word out through the organization. What other real estate development company in the world can do this?

I'm going to disagree with #3 here. $5 gas is only because of speculation based on speculation based on speculation. Yes, people will continue moving to the cities (as they have been for 150 years +-), but that won't necessarily make the viability of a big shopping center any more than anything else has in the past.

Like others said, with online shopping and shipping (not to mention virtual purchases like software, etc), big shopping centers aren't as necessary.

It is also my belief that as gas prices rise more people buy more fuel-efficient cars, or cars that don't use gas at all.

With other malls going bankrupt all over the world, I just don't see this one being a huge success unless they call in those very troops you spoke of in #5.

Regarding $5 gas, there is peak oil (aka Hubbert's peak) to consider.

Oil is a finite resource. Once you've used up half of what is in the ground, the remaining oil is much harder and more expensive to extract. Plus, China & India are just getting started. Millions and millions of new consumers are going to enter the middle class and want to buy cars. I believe $5+ gas will soon be a reality. This is a game changer. So, yes, I think more people will move to cities.

Driverless cars are going to revolutionize our transportation system, leading to more decentraliztion, not less.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/21/autos/driverless_cars/index.htm

A fully networked traffic system will enable cars to drive without stop lights or traffic jams. Cars will be able to maintain steady speeds with little or no stopping or slowing making for easier and faster commutes and long distance trips.

Driverless cars will be much safer and many of the heavy safety systems now installed in cars can be eliminated.

Driverless cars will turn vehicles into appliances as speed and acceleration and handling will be out of the control of the passengers. Why pay for 300 horsepower if 100 will do? Nobody buys a toaster because based on the watts it burns.

Insurance companies are going to charge much higher rates to those who continue to drive.

Freight companies will be able to move stuff 24 hours a day without worrying about drivers.

My prediction is that an aging Baby Boomer generation will flock to driverless cars when they start to realize they are too old to drive. Driverless cars will get higher MPG, at least 70 mpg, and will give people more freedom to live where they want to.

The church leadership is missing another turning point in history.

When you say City Creek, are you referring only to the Mall or the entire development?


Assuming just the Mall, If the reported cost of development figures are correct, the project will never pencil out. Rent payments would never come close to covering debt service, or in this case the Church's development costs.

From a financial perspective only, this Mall would not have been developed by anyone looking for a return on investment. NOt even close.

That being said, the Church can easily write down the initial investment costs, and then go forward at a lower costs basis on the books. Similar to a property going into foreclosure and then being acquired by someone at a steep discount.

It will always be around, but there will be large tenant turnover, and high vacancy in 3-5 years. I believe after the first 5 years many high end tenants will close up shop due to low sales.

I live in Davis county. The newgate mall in ogden is booming, the Layton hills mall is fully occupied by tenants.
I suppose that the weather in Utah has an effect on this. Bitter cold and snow most winters, then dry extreme heat in the summers.

I am not a mall shopper, but for some it works.
There is a trend in this country for the boomers wanting more time and less upkeep on houses. As empty nesters they are moving away from the burbs and back into cities. This gives them the chance to take of to travel and be able to go out on foot to eat and shop.
Also puts them closer to more jobs since most fo us will have to work way past retirement age.

In my mind the surprise for the church will have is that the whole downtown area will be occupied with ex or non mormons.
Or maybe they know that and have made sure the mall has upscale resteraunts, shops, etc.

Trolley Square has always been hard to keep occupied. Even when malls were booming. Not sure if it's the rent or the location.
But the financial wiz in my house knows how Goldman sachs operates. And they are in SLC for a reason. I imagine in 20 years SLC will not be much like it is now. Sure the church will be headquartered there. Like a tourist attraction to a small and outdated religion.

Was reading about NYC on wiki the other day. Been really intersted in what they call the gentrification of cities in the US. Even the areas in NYC that were considered dangerous and really ethnic 30 years ago are high rent and the retail is booming. As people leave the church have more disposable income they will be out and about more.

So I can see it off to a slow start, but the church can prob tough it out for quite a while. With the donations.
I have an uncle who has 3 kids. 2 RM's. They have all left the church. And the money they save on tithing they now spend on hobbies and enjoying life.

Either way I will take the time in the late spring to go and look it over. Some of the resteraunts opening there are some that we ate in in Palm springs, scottsdale.

Brick and mortar shopping is on the decline. Shopping in a centralized center city is not something people in surrounding communities want to do. Traffic problems, time, etc.

It will be profitable for about 15 years then it will close and the space will be used for other things.

I wonder if the church would be willing to take a loss on it for a while?

Kind of use it as a loss leader to attract people to temple square...

and that is the mormons gave them a sweetheart deal on rent and they will have access to tons of cheap sheeple and lower B&M costs overall.

Here is a Photo of the "Real Estate Arm of the Church"

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/media/photos/5642356.jpg

why is he using a prop hand?

it's so obvious because if it were his real skin it'd be all orange and gross - like his face

In the end it doesn't matter LDS inc's mall is a financial flop because the Church is in a constant state of being "bailed-out" by billions in tithing funds. The Church claims that no tithing funds go to City Creek but the fact is the money is moved all around to make it all work. Members are blind investors w/o the benefit of knowing what their money is doing.

I often think that the Brethren would rather throw $ billions of good after bad rather than admit they were wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Besides they want their Vatican in the heart of SLC. City Creek is a big part of that profitable or not.