Monson being there demonstrates how involved the LDS church was in the planning and construction. To me, this implies that Monson had absolute control over how that money was spent.
This means that someone claiming to be Christ's representative on Earth, chose to build (and celebrate the completion) of a high end shopping mall rather than clothe the naked, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. The $5 billion price tag dwarfs the church’s humanitarian spending to such a degree as to be 5 times more than ALL of the humanitarian spending that the church done since they started keeping records over 25 years ago.
It seems that the motivation for the City Creek project was to revitalize downtown (a confusing and SLC centric goal for a ‘worldwide church’) in an effort to protect the value of other substantial investments made by for-profit companies owned by “The Corporation of the President of The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints”.
Since they speak for Jesus......it is exactly what jesus would do. End of story in a TBM's head. If Monson cut someone's head off like Nephi they would be fine with it and say it was for the betterment of mankind.
The pope just had a personal cologne designed for him. I'd rather see Tommy shopping at a mall than know that Mr. Hitler Youth Pope is trying to smell good, to be honest!