During his tenure as LDS president, Hinckley stretched the church's already sizable headquarters, building a mammoth conference center and turning a controversial Main Street block into a pedestrian plaza that now links Temple Square with the Church Office Building. He also launched the billion-dollar-plus City Creek Center project, which is expected to transform downtown in 2011.

"That's going to change the face of our city for a long time to come," said Bob Farrington, executive director of the Downtown Alliance. "It's a huge footprint."

Hinckley, who lived in an apartment a block from Temple Square, wanted a vibrant city surrounding the LDS campus.

"In many cities, you go to a church headquarters through a slum or debilitated parts of the city. He didn't want that to happen in Salt Lake City," said Jan Shipps, a pre-eminent non-LDS scholar of Mormon history, who interviewed Hinckley extensively.

Plus, the church leader was a "hometown guy," said Bart Stringham, president of the nearly 100-year-old Utah Woolen Mills, which sits in an LDS Church-owned building that was spared demolition as part of the City Creek Center. He "had enough vision to see that a five-generation, Mormon-family business could remain" in a 21st-century, mixed-use project.

Under Hinckley, the church also turned a South Temple parking lot into the high-rise Brigham Apartments, worked with the city to create a downtown park boasting an above-ground piece of City Creek and backed light rail on Main Street. Hinckley also moved the LDS Business College and a Brigham Young University satellite campus to the Triad Center, hoping an influx of students at 400 West and South Temple would enliven downtown and bolster the nearby Gateway shopping center.

"We both had the same goal, which is to have Salt Lake City be a beautiful and attractive city," said former Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini.

Hinckley earned kudos, along with a few dings, for historic preservation. Last spring, the church completed an extensive seismic renovation of its 140-year-old Tabernacle, but discarded the building's original pine pews. It also saved the 89-year-old First Security Bank Building from demolition, but tore down the Inn at Temple Square.

With the City Creek Center, the church showed an "openness to new ideas," said former city planning boss Stephen Goldsmith, who applauds the overall plan but opposes the planned skywalk.

"If in fact it is his voice, his message that created this receptivity, then that would be his contribution [to downtown]."

rwinters@sltrib.com

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* Tribune reporter PEGGY FLETCHER STACK contributed to this story.