Skybridge popular

Utah residents overwhelmingly support the LDS Church's plans to build a skybridge across Main Street, according to a statewide poll, even as Salt Lake City's mayor and urban-planning advocates warn that the bridge could hurt downtown.

A Dan Jones & Associates poll, conducted May 21-24 for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV, found that 73 percent of respondents in Salt Lake County either probably or definitely favor the bridge. Statewide, that number is 77 percent.

The poll questioned 410 people statewide and has a statewide margin of error of 5 percent. The survey included 161 Salt Lake County residents, and the margin of error for that portion of the poll is 7.5 percent.

Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson has vowed to do whatever it takes to stop the bridge from being built as part of the planned City Creek Center development. He is considering selling air rights or a conservation easement over Main Street to prevent the right-of-way from going to Property Reserve Inc., the real-estate arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is developing City Creek Center.

He worries the bridge will create a self-enclosed mall spanning two blocks at the heart of downtown, a "gerbil tube" that will benefit the mall's retailers but will keep people off the city's already struggling Main Street. Anderson, however, could not unilaterally sell air space above the proposed project without council approval.

Officials with Taubman Centers Inc., the church's retail partner in the project, say the project hinges on a two-level shopping experience, and they insist the second level would not be viable unless a walkway connects the facing second levels across Main Street.

In the poll, the bridge plan was most popular among LDS Church members, with 89 percent of self-proclaimed "very active" or "somewhat active" church members saying they favored it, although 81 percent of inactive LDS members were also in support.

The bridge has the approval of a majority of members of other faiths, as well, with 65 percent of Protestants and 55 percent of Catholics amenable to the plan.

Anderson has suggested that the City Council's recent approval of an amendment to the city's downtown master plan paving the way for a skybridge was passed because the developer is connected to the LDS Church.

Following a recent Deseret Morning News report that Anderson was considering selling the air rights to block the skybridge, dozens of e-mails to the paper accused the mayor of opposing the plan because he is anti-LDS. Anderson has roundly denied that charge.