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Besides cracking down on smoking, The Gateway's new owners have beefed up security, curtailed access during off hours, and plan to establish a dress code.
Although the Salt Lake City mall is private property, the new policies have prompted concerns among advocates for homeless people, who are drawn to the neighborhood by nearby shelters and service providers and often use some of the open-air mall's amenities and common areas.
"We have questions about it, for sure," said Glenn Bailey, executive director of Urban Crossroads Center, which lobbies on behalf of low-income, disabled and homeless Utahns.
"If they're profiling people based on their appearance," Bailey said, "then that is troublesome."
Denise Hart Neff, vice president of marketing for Phoenix-based Vestar, declined in an email exchange to address whether the measures were aimed at the homeless, saying only that the moves are intended to make the shopping center safer and more engaging for customers.
She offered no details about what the dress code would entail.
In an interview shortly after Vestar acquired the mall earlier this month, President David Larcher said the company would make restoring mall safety a top priority and that it hoped to be part of a communitywide effort to address the homeless issues downtown.
"Our goal is to immediately make it a safe place to shop and be in," Larcher said. "We have to focus on the homeless issues."
He said a multipronged approach unveiled in November by city, county and business leaders to ease pressure on downtown homeless shelters was "a major factor" in Vestar buying The Gateway.
That plan calls for, among other things, $27 million in new spending on enhanced services and added shelter capacity dispersed throughout the county.
The Gateway, which opened in 2001, has suffered in recent years from declining occupancy in the face of competition from LDS Church-built City Creek Center, the luxury mall that opened in 2012 a few blocks east on Main Street.
As it finalized its Gateway purchase, Vestar and co-investor Oaktree Capital Management announced plans to invest $30 million in revitalizing and rebranding the open-air shopping center in hopes of boosting foot traffic and recruiting new tenants.
The effort, Larcher said, is aimed at remaking The Gateway into an attractive destination combining entertainment outlets, new restaurants, a boosted roster of national and regional retail outlets and a series of regular community events including live music.
In a newly launched monthly newsletter to mall tenants, Vestar on Wednesday unveiled its ban on indoor and outdoor smoking, except at eight designated areas on the shopping center's outer perimeter.
"We are now a SMOKE-FREE shopping center," the newsletter said, noting the change was "an effort to provide a more pleasant experience" and to comply with the Utah Indoor Clean Air Act.
The company sent The Salt Lake Tribune and other tenants an expanded policy statement Thursday, saying it would be limiting public pedestrian access to the mall before its official opening at 10 a.m. each morning, enforced by barricades at key entrances.
Office tenants, retail workers and residents of Gateway condominiums and apartments would be exempt.
Mall businesses open before regular hours "will continue to have access to their customers," the statement said, and vehicular traffic entering before 10 a.m. "will also be allowed access."
Mall managers also are offering security escorts for Gateway employees traveling to and from their vehicles, loading docks, trash collection areas and tenant storage units, according to the newsletter.
Several people have reported this week being questioned at new checkpoints while attempting to enter the shopping center before 10 a.m. and having backpacks and other personal possessions scrutinized by security staff.
Bailey said homeless people have recounted being targeted in the crackdown, particularly at the southern entrance closest to The Road Home shelter at 210 S. Rio Grande.
He warned the new policies may raise legal issues regarding access to major thoroughfares through the mall located at 400 West and 200 South.
"People who live on the streets," Bailey added, "have all the rights of other free Americans, in terms of access to sidewalks and public thoroughfares."
Calls by The Tribune to the chief spokesman for Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski and the city's homeless-services coordinator seeking comment were not immediately returned.
Twitter: @TonySemerad