Reports are that the SLC renovation totaled $5B but that CCC itself was around $1.5B.

Exaggeration of the amount is not helping us exmos with credibility. I'm trying to nail down the actual amount.

One analysis using $6B tries to claim that the costs for CCC are so excessive that it implies criminal money laundering. I've seen posts here doing that as well.

Let's get our facts straight.


Source of info:

$5B
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=19428181&title=a-look-inside-as-city-creek-centers-completion-nears&s_cid=featured-1
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,432525,432525

$1.5B
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=19422458&title=city-creek-store-roster-announced&s_cid=featured-4
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705398244/15B-City-Creek-Center-on-schedule-for-March-22-opening.html

Excessive spending
http://truthmarche.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/church-finance-part-iv/
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,505275,505275



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2012 08:11AM by Jesus Smith.

No one?

these claims are archived here at exmo, so we should really get it right, or be accused of lying.

From the first link: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=19428181&title=a-look-inside-as-city-creek-centers-completion-nears&s_cid=featured-1
March 1st, 2012 @ 10:19pm
SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake Chamber says $5 billion have gone into the revitalization of downtown Salt Lake City, and a major part of that is soon to open in the new City Creek Center.

The project is nearly finished, and H. David Burton — presiding bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the man who has overseen City Creek from the beginning — anticipates the center's Mar. 22 grand opening will be just that: grand.



From the second link:
March 1st, 2012 @ 12:57pm
SALT LAKE CITY — The complete list of retail shops and restaurants at City Creek Center was announced Thursday by Taubman Centers, Inc. — the Michigan-based company that manages the retail portion of the $1.5 billion mixed use development.



Here is another link: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705341784/Salt-Lake-City-high-rise-is-ready-for-occupancy-on-Main.html
That was: Published: Wednesday, Nov. 4 2009 12:00 a.m. MST
Aiding companies' decisions about moving downtown is City Creek Center, a three-block development by City Creek Reserve Inc., a development arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in partnership with Detroit-area retail developer Taubman Centers Inc.

City Creek Reserve is spending more than $1 million a day on construction, and the project ultimately will cost around $3 billion, said Chris Redgrave, a KSL executive who also chairs the Salt Lake Chamber's Can-Do Coalition, which is looking for ways to jump-start the downtown economy.

-----

I believe the $5 billion to be reasonably accurate. There certainly is varying information coming from official mormon sources. Note that I am just copying portions that say City Creek Center. The 2009 article from Deseret News states $3 billion for just City Creek Center. The articles published on the same day of March of this year are short on details. They could be including other development that was for other

If we are wrong, we will correct the information. No official Mormon source has contacted me on any factual errors here. I believe it is clear that the cost of construction is at minimum $3 billion just for city creek center. As we watched this over the past few years, the numbers from official sources kept rising. The purchase of the land, which was nearly $1 billion, is likely on top of the construction costs. Since they do not open the books and we are using KSL and Deseret information (and not anonymous sources), we can only conclude $3 billion minimum to $5 billion.

Eric



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2012 03:49PM by Eric K.

They dismiss them on the grounds that they are reported by the Chamber of Commerce, who might be willing to exaggerate the figures to make it look like Salt Lake City is a good place to invest because so much money is going into development.

Someone in the other thread didn't like my comparison of the City Creek mall to the Burj Khalifa, because it may have cost less to build. So, how about a comparison to Mall of America Phase 2.

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

"The cost of expansion is $2.1 billion, doubling the mall's size with a 5,200,000-square-foot (480,000 m2) extension."

Compare that with a cost of $1.5 billion for the City Creek mall at 700,000 square feet. I still think it was a money laundering project.

I wondered how much it cost TSCC to break their leases, and did they have to pay the previous mall tenants for lost business? I remember stores closing up gradually one by one so maybe they waited for the contracts to end without renewing them. A few stores relocated, but I think some simply closed, and reopened years later. Has that cost been included? Early on there were disputes about Nordstrom moving to the Gateway, and either they made the decision to stay or they were given a nice deal to keep them there.

Assuming the Danites didn't get him, he might be able to provide some insight. I have none at this point; I've barely driven around the venues (Gateway is a far better place to pick up fares), and the figure I heard was the church paid one billion dollars each for Crossroads and ZCMI malls (which they then proceeded to demolish after what was likely a considerable amount of bureaucratic deliberation). So one can add construction costs to that one, recognizing that LDS Inc. doubtless did use a lot of leverage to do the construction at least somewhat economically.

I don't think the "weirdness" of the decision to build CCC can be under-estimated. Six months before they tore it down, I took a walk through the utterly deserted Crossroads Mall, and it had been "spotlessly cleaned," as if they were uncertain what to do with it. I was surprised, as a result when it was torn down to the construction footings forty or fifty feet below ground level.

Around 2000, I gave a ride to the airport to a high-powered, non-LDS engineer I picked up at the just completed Con Center. He gave me a figure of 497 million dollars for the construction costs on that one, and I consider him particularly credible.Yet at ceremonies a few months later, Gordon B. Hinckley was implying not that much money had been spent, suggesting costs were only on the order of two or three hundred million.

That strikes me as particularly doubtful (especially given the "rumors of wrangling and nitpicking" on some of the opulent details I was hearing from several sources). LDS leaders love to speak of "bargains," a sort of "reverse pride" that stands in contrast of say, a wealthy sort who brags about what he paid for a particular painting or other work of art.

I agree with you completely on the need for as much credibility as possible on this issue.

it seems the $5B amount was announced by the SLC C of C as the TOTAL revonation/upgrades related to the project.

IDK if the smaller includes the condos, infrastructure improvements, etc.


maybe the smaller is only of the retail.

The Salt Lake Assessor's Office appraised the entire property at $500 million.

Breakdown:

retail portions: $177 million
condo buildings: $312 million

This is just for assessing property taxes, and doesn't reflect cost. I suppose it is a proxy for market value, but I'm not sure.

http://kutv.com/news/features/local/stories/vid_734.shtml

I updated the front page of the site. I want us to be accurate. How do you get accurate information from the Mormon church? That is the problem.

It is possible that they got a lot of government subsidy for job creation, recruiting industry and a variety of other reasons. Thes subsidies would have built roads, ingress, egress and other things. I don't think the value would total anywhere in the rage of 3+ Billion, but the could shave something off the gross. The contractors, architects, property managment firms (especially in records recruiting more merchants) should mention the value somewhere in their marketing materials. Stringing that together should reveal some worthwhile number.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53780046-78/creek-mcentee-center-diamonds.html.csp

The LDS Church’s $2 billion City Creek Center is open for business, and on a Friday morning, it teemed with shoppers and their kids and more courtesy staff than you can imagine.


http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765560418/LDS-Presiding-Bishop-H-David-Burton-says-part-of-City-Creek-project-goal-has-been-met.html

The $1.5 billion mixed-use project was developed by City Creek Reserve Inc. (CCRI) — a for-profit real estate company owned by the LDS Church. Including the City Creek project, roughly $4 billion to $5 billion of economic development is currently under way in the downtown area, Bishop Burton said

So it may be the figure is 1.5 to 3 billion.

In a (seemingly) past life, I worked in Economic Development. For a project this massive, it has a lot of implications on unemployment/underemployment, and bringing business to the city/county. Additionally, bringing more residents to the city is an economic development concern for which benefits are awarded. In it has implications for to tourism (somewhat connected to economic development), which has a piggy-back effect on straightforward economic goals. Because of this, county, city, state and federal government picks up a lot of the bill, and continues to do so for years to come.

It is impossible to discern how much, exactly, this cost the church. We don't know if the media is being given post-aid figures, pre-aid figures, a mixture of the two. Due to all the changes in the numbers reported, my guess is that 5 billion is a pretty accurate number for the project, but who knows how much of that was paid by the church. I'd feel pretty confident with the 1.5 to 3 billion figure for what the church paid, but I also still feel confident that it was a 5 billion project.

Just an example of the benefits issued to businesses that satisfy many economic development interests, most Walmarts have the majority of their roads, utility work and a variety of other foundational things covered by public funds. One of the reasons is that they commit to hiring a certain number of people who are getting public benefits. In addition, for each person on public benefits, they get a couple thousand in tax credits (which isn't an issue for a non-profit, but this is just an example). This is one of the reasons that they keep employees under the level of subsistance and provide a wealth of public aid information to employees and actively encourage them to take advantage of these benefits, because it's a cycle, they keep their employees underemployeed, and the government keeps tossing them financial benefits. This is just an example, but revitalizing SLC would be a very, very attractive project to economic development and tourism boards, and they'd probably work every aid and grant program to get funds put up to accomplish this. Searching local, state and federal grants and program payouts would be a start in trying to follow the money for the mall - followed by press releases, case studies and portfolio work made public by every firm involved in the project, and then marketing materials produced by everyone involved in marketing and filling the retail, commercial and residential space - all these things will produce a dollar amount, but is it worth it to spend the time on the research? I'm not sure. I don't think 1.5 Billion of church money spent on this non-church-related venture is any less disgusting or shocking than 5 billion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2012 10:05PM by wittyname.

"I don't think 1.5 Billion of church money spent on this non-church-related venture is any less disgusting or shocking than 5 billion."

I am of the same opinion. We don't need to use the more probable higher costs for shock value. We are uncertain to the numbers, so I modified the front page to a more moderate amount that is backed by numerous sources. We will never know the true figure. A church building a billion+ dollar mall is digusting in any case. I am not pursuing this any more unless other folks can find credible information. Thanks. Now back to cutting the grass before making some pina coladas.

Enjoy the Pina Coladas!

Wouldn't it be cool if indeed, money laundering happened and the MORG was implicated and Tommy got his bitch ass tossed in the slammer!!!

If that happens, Party at my house!

I'm topping this because I still see a lot of posters say $5B is the amount LDSinc paid.

It isn't and we need to be correct in our facts to have credibility on other issues.

Jesus Smith Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It isn't and we need to be correct in our facts to
> have credibility on other issues.

Why is it that you can point out that exmo’s should be correct in their facts, but when I do the same I am attacked?

When did I attack you? Understand, my memory isn't perfect these days.

for doing what you are doing here.

At first LD$ Inc. claimed one billion dollars.
Then they admitted to five billion dollars.
Which leads me to believe that the actual cost is probably around seven billion dollars.

Dave. Show me where they admitted that the LDS church portion was $5B. I've never seen that. What I linked to is what we've had all along. The entire revitalization of downtown SLC is $5B and a large portion is subsidized by LDSinc. The highest amounts I've seen for their portion is $3B.

If someone knows otherwise, please let me know.

Does anyone know what the square footage of the mall is?
I know an industrial estimator who would like to put together an estimate for the cost of building the mall.

> The SLC renovations totalled $5B the mall was 1.5B

I don't really give a crap what the total is I want to know why, when over 55% of the church's members aren't even in the US let alone SLC that they are spending so many of their resources on the SLC neighborhood?

Why aren't they building a university in several of the countries in south america, the philipines, africa etc where the populations could use some help with education and food?

Why are they funneling money into SLC?????

oh YEAH because they're a bunch of elitist jerks who take advantage of the those who don't know better.