Can downtown Salt Lake City weather the ruin?

The small shops, restaurants and performance spaces near the 20-acre construction zone hope so. They'll remain open for business. And the city will ensure all roads leading downtown will remain open, even if some surrounding blocks are shut down.

"It'll be a mess - but it doesn't mean we're closed," said City Council Chairman David Buhler.

The city and Salt Lake Chamber hired Bill Knowles as a construction-mitigation manager to ensure the impact is minimal.

And his job is starting in earnest now, with the LDS Church publicly announcing its plans for two blocks of Main Street property. It will tear down Crossroads Plaza and ZCMI Center malls and some surrounding office towers. The replacement will be known as City Creek Center, with retail, condos and apartments and a representation of City Creek running through it. It's slated to open in 2011.

On Wednesday, Knowles said all streets will remain open, barring an emergency, though some lanes may be narrowed. TRAX will continue to run as well.

The few shops remaining at Crossroads Plaza and ZCMI Center malls will remain open until January.

Then the demolition. Crossroads will go first, by Utah-based Okland Construction. Big D Construction will tear down the ZCMI Center. It will take a year for the companies to dig 55 feet underground, where 5,600 parking stalls will go, replacing the parking structures now on the blocks. "It's going to be a major, major hole," Knowles said.

The Key Bank Tower, which is attached to Crossroads Plaza, will be imploded at an as-yet-unknown time, Knowles added.

But first goes the Inn at Temple Square, a 75-year-old, 90-room hotel that the LDS Church could have listed on the National Register of Historic Places but never did. Built in 1930, it was renovated in 1988 to reflect an 18th-century English inn. But the $8 million renovation apparently was a temporary fix, and the church quickly dismissed keeping the red-brick structure.

The final checkout is Oct. 28.

The city still must approve the demolition permit. Officials can't stave it off by requiring the church to conduct an economic hardship study on saving the structure, since the hotel is not listed on the city's historic register. Neither is the old First Security/Deseret Bank Building, 79 S. Main, which the church also plans to tear down.

Louis Zunguze, the city's community-development director, anticipates approving demolition in about a month.

Business owners on property near the malls are positive about the church's plans, but they fear yet another round of construction downtown. The last major disruption was on Main and South Temple in the late 1990s while light rail was being installed.

"The object is to survive," said Bart Stringham, proprietor of the 100-year-old Utah Woolen Mills, which sits on South Temple on the Crossroads block. His building will be unscathed by the church's $1 billion project.

Because his shop faces Temple Square, Stringham is hopeful Utah Woolen Mills will continue to attract a lot of foot traffic. "We're optimistic we can pull it off," he said. "We are right across from [Temple Square's] 5.5 million visitors a year."

City officials say they've learned from the pain brought on local businesses during TRAX construction when several businesses folded. The city, by hiring Knowles, is being more proactive this time. It is holding construction meetings every other week. And it will offer "pardon our dust" loans of $20,000 to affected businesses.

Knowles will oversee more than the mall construction in the next several years. A 21-story office tower will rise at 222 S. Main, and TRAX will be extended from the Delta Center to the transit hub at 300 South and 600 West.

Light-rail construction will start this year, though Knowles said roads around The Gateway won't be ripped up until after the Christmas shopping season.

Bob Farrington, executive director of the Downtown Alliance, is downplaying the impact of the church's construction.

Few people go to the nearly empty malls now, he said. However, the alliance and others will likely try to induce people to continue coming downtown with marketing and other events. Church officials are saying the construction itself may be a draw.

"It's not that the malls are the end-all and be-all of downtown. Life doesn't stop, and we need to do things that let people know that the city's an interesting place to be," Farrington said.

Scott Beck, president of Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau, expects some convention planners may be turned off by the construction. But since they book conventions years in advance, the 2011 completion date doesn't sound so bad.

And he'd rather show off construction than a dead mall.

"When a city has an empty building like the Crossroads mall, that's more of a liability than a big hole."

hmay@sltrib.com

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* CHRISTOPHER SMART contributed to this story.

Inn auction

The Inn at Temple Square will close Oct. 28. Managers must clear out its 90 rooms quickly because the building will be demolished in early November. The hotel will be selling off its furnishings and giving its employees first dibs. The leftovers will be available to the public at a silent auction Nov. 2-11 at the former Mervyns' spot at Crossroads Plaza.