The $500-million plan remains under wraps, but details are emerging. Officials are talking sidewalk dining at ritzy restaurants, digs for retailers new to the area and showcase shops for the ones already here.
The overhauled mall (Crossroads and ZCMI will become one) will borrow some features from Taubman's template. There will be an indoor playground called the Kids Court. The closest example comes from Denver, where the developer's Cherry Creek Shopping Center finds parents parking their strollers at the entrance, lounging on padded benches and trying to track their kids in throngs of little bodies running, jumping and sliding off oversized bacon strips, waffles and cereal bowls.
Salt Lake City's new mall probably will sport TV screens and free wireless Internet connections. It also could boast high-quality fixtures, even in the restÂrooms - Cherry Creek's have granite countertops and fresh flowers.
But will the Salt Lake City mall perform like Taubman's 22 others? Will it prompt suburbanites to drive past Layton Hills, Fashion Place and South Towne? Can the developer with a niche for upscale centers - Taubman's malls include high-end department stores NeiÂman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Dillard's and Nordstrom, along with moderate retailers like J.C. Penney and Sears - bring first-class goods and new merchants here?
The answers are "yes" in virtually every city Taubman enters.
"If Taubman is involved, it's going to be done right," says Marc Schtul, president of Denver's independent business district Cherry Creek North, which has flourished since Taubman opened its Cherry Creek mall across the street. "Taubman coming is a good thing for you. They will take that mall . . . to the next level."
It won't happen without strife. For starters, residents can expect hand-wringing about The Gateway's fate and the new mall's design.
'Do this right': The Salt Lake City venture presents Taubman with unique challenges.
The company has agreed to redevelop the malls for the owner, the LDS Church. Taubman must combine Crossroads and ZCMI - which now are separated by Main Street - perhaps through a sky bridge. Parking garages must be rebuilt, with portions underground. Taubman is coordinating with an unnamed housing developer, which will build about 900 units on the blocks. Plus, there are five existing office towers and one of them, KeyBank, may be demolished.
Ron Pastore, the LDS Church's Boston-based redevelopment consultant who also oversees $4.2 billion of retail assets for AEW Capital Management, says church officials - who declined to be interviewed for this story - want to create a "vibrant, urban district."
"They're adamant we've got to do this right the first time. These gentlemen are looking at what Salt Lake is going to be in 100 years, 150 years. They know there's a problem, and they really want to solve it or at least start the solution."
Pastore acknowledges there are limits to what the church will allow on the blocks because the malls sit at the stoop of historic Temple Square. Even so, Sunday sales remain a possibility, as do alcohol sales at planned restaurants.
There could be three anchors. One will be Nordstrom, which will replace the to-be-demolished Inn at Temple Square, according to City Council members. It's a plum spot, across from Temple Square and the Salt Palace. Another could be a Meier & Frank recast as Macy's. The third probably won't be Saks Fifth Avenue or Neiman Marcus - too high-end for Utah. Other tenants are a mystery.
A few stores will duplicate the fare in suburban malls. But officials maintain the new center still will draw shoppers with its combination of new stores and new experiences.
Goodbye, Gateway? Some Gateway tenants probably will move, says Bruce Heckman, Taubman's vice president of development. Roughly half of Gateway's 50 retailers can be found in Taubman malls. And Taubman, as a national developer, will have more pull with them than Utah-based Gateway developer The Boyer Co.
"Many tenants in Crossroads and ZCMI moved to Gateway," Heckman says. "I would suspect there would be some reverse migration at some point."
Gateway, three blocks west of Crossroads, is now the city's upscale center. It succeeded in luring new stores - from Anthropologie to Z Gallerie - and draws shoppers from across the region.
While Heckman says Taubman doesn't plan to raid Gateway - and even says the two projects will work together - he predicts Boyer's center could morph into a neighborhood market, with such support services as a grocery store or hardware store.
Other Taubman officials have said Gateway would attract younger shoppers while the new Main Street mall would be for older, wealthier customers. Indeed, it's difficult to picture the scantily clad models from Gateway's Abercrombie & Fitch gazing out at Temple Square.
Taubman is ceding the entertainment dollar to Gateway. It's not including a movie theater in the Salt Lake City center, as it does in many of its malls. Gateway already has a multiplex, the Clark Planetarium and a planned children's museum.
While Jake Boyer is looking at adding a small grocery store on Gateway's south side, the center's manager doesn't want to lose his upscale retailers. In fact, Gateway will add another 200,000 square feet of shops starting this summer. And the Boyer family owns another 7 acres to the west for possible expansion.
"We were here first. We built this with the intent to have the tenants we have in place in place," Boyer says. "To ask us to evolve into something different than we are, that's saying, 'We are going to take all of Gateway's tenants.' That's not an option for us. If that's really what he's [Heckman] saying, we've got a problem."
Talk of raids is ironic, given that Gateway, which opened in 2001, snatched stores from Main Street.
Retailer Jeff Barnard, who's been negotiating to keep his Lolabella Boutique clothing store in the new mall even without seeing the design or tenant list, believes Taubman will help another store he owns at Gateway because it will bring more people downtown.
"It'll be the best shopping between Denver and [Las] Vegas. As long as both shopping centers have a strong shopping environment, then we can have stores in both."
Spreading the wealth: Gateway aside, the new mall is expected to spur other development and is being designed to push shoppers into neighboring blocks.
It will be an enclosed mall, though there will be glass and other features to make it more urban. It will also reflect the city's "feel." But Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson remains skeptical, worrying an indoor mall isn't good for downtown. Anderson also opposes a skywalk, a feature that would require a zoning change. In other cities, Taubman has compromised to address such fears but only to a point.
Regardless of aesthetics, Hamilton Partners' Bruce Bingham says the plans are encouraging him to speed up construction of a 22-story office tower on Main Street. The LDS Church will renovate the Triad Center into a campus for two colleges - BYU-Salt Lake and LDS Business College.
There also are tentative plans for an arts district on the block south of Crossroads. And since some retailers won't be welcomed back in the new mall, the city hopes those stores land on 300 South's blooming shopping district.
But some retailers aren't willing to wait out the disruption from mall construction. Lotus Gallery & Persimmon Asian Antiques & Gifts recently closed shop on 100 South near Crossroads and may return when the dust settles.
When it does, tourists will be courted. Taubman malls offer language translators, hotel packages, shuttle buses and discounts on shopping and cultural attractions. The attention pays off. Denver's Cherry Creek is one of the city's top tourist attractions and 20 percent of the annual 15 million visitors are from out of town.
Utah already lures tourists, but most aren't shopping at the malls, Heckman says. About 5 million visitors a year tour Temple Square. Out-of-towners spend almost 2 million skier days on the slopes. And 232,000 people travel to Salt Lake City for conventions.
"All these people who come to town and go skiing, when you ask them in focus groups, they never knew there were malls downtown," Heckman says.
Marylynn Beck, general manager of Hotel Monaco, hesitates to send her guests to nearby Crossroads or ZCMI, and instead directs them to Gateway.
"Have you been to Crossroads lately? I wouldn't want to send them to a place where half the doors are closed. If you're going to be a big city, you have to make sure you act like one. Having a good mall - it's time."
hmay@sltrib.com
