Also slated to move are the trolley car, which would be near the Sand House on the southwest end of the mall, and the wrought-iron sign that bears the shopping center's name on 500 South, which would move slightly to the west because of a new entry location for the block.

The city's Historic Landmark Commission last week gave the relocations a tentative approval, though that's contingent on an overall site plan from the Planning Commission.

Commissioners on Wednesday expressed concern for the block's trees. Blancarte and the planning staff say the city's arborist will study the existing trees and save as many as possible.

"They said that about Gateway, too, and I watched each one of them be torn into shreds," Commissioner Babs DeLay responded.

Commissioner Tim Chambless said he hopes to see a block rich in trees, especially because early drawings of plans for the Whole Foods building "look like the Holocaust Museum" in Washington, D.C., with plain, blank walls.

Another problem with the Whole Foods building is the planned location for its loading dock — its "ugly side," as Commissioner Kathy Scott called it — right up against 500 South. The building sits between the loading dock and 700 East, but both streets likely would feel the effects of truck traffic.

Blancarte called loading docks a necessary evil of grocers but said the developers are doing what they can to minimize the impacts, including planned screening walls and vegetation to block the view of the dock as much as possible from 500 South.

The skybridge that connects the mall to a parking lot on the south side would remain, though Blancarte said, "We're going to pretty it up." But unlike a proposed skybridge at downtown's City Creek Center, the Trolley bridge likely will not face much opposition.

"It's a historic structure," DeLay said. "It is the view corridor."

Trolley Square was built in 1908 as a collection of barns to house the city's street cars. When the street-car system was eliminated in the 1940s, the barns remained, and in the 1970s they were converted into a shopping center.

"I first saw Trolley Square a year and a half ago and I fell in love with it," Blancarte said. He said he is confident the makeover will "turn Trolley Square back into a crown jewel of retail in the community."

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E-MAIL: dsmeath@desnews.com