At a City Council meeting Tuesday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Taubman Centers Inc. will become a part owner of the retail portion of the multimillion-dollar renovation of the Crossroads Plaza and ZCMI Center malls. Taubman signed a letter of intent with the church.

In addition, the church announced it could build up to 900 housing units on the two blocks, almost double its original estimate. LDS Presiding Bishop H. David Burton also reiterated the church would not seek public funds for the redevelopment.

What remains unknown is when construction will start and whether the projects will be open Sunday or allow tenants to serve alcohol.

"We absolutely think there is a strong opportunity to build downtown," said William Taubman, executive vice president of the Michigan-based company. "I'd rather not put a [construction] date out there. It really is like a Swiss watch, the three-dimensional aspects of all the different elements coming together. It will take some time."

The LDS Church purchased Crossroads Plaza in 2003 and announced plans for a mixed-use development on that 10-acre block, along with its ZCMI Center across the street. The church is also bringing students from LDS Business College and the Salt Lake City satellite of Brigham Young University to the Triad Center near The Gateway. Together, the projects are expected to cost $500 million.

Taubman said his publicly traded company has had a number of conversations with the church about alcohol sales and Sunday closures, but he wanted to wait until he can present plans for the entire project to announce a decision. The church urges members to avoid shopping on Sundays and it eschews alcohol. ZCMI is already closed Sundays though Crossroads isn't.

However, Nordstrom has said it will be closed Sundays in the renovated Crossroads Plaza. "That seems to be the direction they're going," Taubman acknowledged.

The amount of retail will be reduced - there is 1.2 million square feet between the two malls - with housing units. The Inn at Temple Square could be closed to be a part of the redevelopment. Burton said the hotel was "conceived as a place holder for future development" when it was renovated about a decade ago.

While Tuesday's announcement was expected - Taubman has been the church's consultant on the malls for about 18 months - it boosts the confidence of city and downtown leaders that the new malls will thrive. Taubman's involvement has long been seen as key to the malls' success. The mall developer analyzed the market before it would commit to further involvement. The partnership also means the church won't have to develop the malls alone, as it did with ZCMI Center.

"I would suspect it means Taubman's got a great deal of comfort about what the likelihood of success would be in their leasing efforts and finding complementary tenants for Nordstrom," said Bob Farrington, director of the Downtown Alliance. "They would not be taking this next step unless they were getting good responses from the marketplace about what the plans were."

Taubman is credited with persuading Nordstrom to stay at Crossroads Plaza when for years the department store threatened to close its downtown store by the summer of this year. Nordstrom announced it would remain at a revamped Crossroads last August.

The church said it will work with city planners, downtown employers and merchants on the design, zoning and transportation- and construction-related impact of the mixed-use project.

Owning 18.2 million square feet of leasable land, Taubman is ranked 29th out of the top 50 owners of North American shopping centers, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. The ranking was as of August 2004.

Taubman owns or manages 24 shopping centers across the country. Most are enclosed malls, though Taubman does have some open-air markets in its portfolio. Last week in his State of the City speech, Mayor Rocky Anderson urged the church to avoid the former.

"My hope is that there is less 'mall' and more authentic downtown, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly streetscape," he said.

On Tuesday, Taubman and Burton wouldn't characterize the design. Past conceptual drawings showed enclosed malls, but Burton mentioned Tuesday there would be some demolition of existing structures.

hmay@sltrib.com