City Creek gets updated finish: 2012

An updated timeline calls for landscapers to be putting the finishing touches on City Creek Center by mid-2012.

Bishop H. David Burton, presiding bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, met Tuesday with the Salt Lake City Council to summarize the momentum of the estimated $1.5 billion project and present a completion schedule for the downtown mixed-use development.

"You can see that a lot of progress is being made," Bishop Burton said, "and a lot of activity is going forward."

The presentation focused more on the residential component of the project than recent meetings between city leaders and City Creek Reserve Inc., a development arm of the LDS Church.

As many as 900 residential units will be added to the three downtown blocks bordered by West Temple, South Temple, 200 East and 100 South, Bishop Burton said. CCRI officials estimate that people will be able to start moving into the mostly upscale housing units in early 2010.

Residential towers 6 and 7, located on South Temple mid-block between West Temple and Main Street and overlooking Temple Square, will be the first to be completed, Bishop Burton said.

The concrete foundation was poured last weekend for the tallest of the development's residential buildings — a 32-story tower on the southeast corner of West Temple and South Temple. That building, known as tower 1, will have 185 residential units when it opens in early 2011.

Bishop Burton announced a change of plans for the other residential building on the former Crossroads Plaza block, tower 2, planned for 100 South mid-block between West Temple and Main Street.

CCRI plans to construct only the lower-level retail portion of the building, perhaps as high as three stories, in the first phase to be completed by late 2010. The residential portion of what has been designed as a 19-story building will be added later as the housing market dictates, Bishop Burton said.

The developers want to see how quickly residences fill up before adding more units to the block. Depending on the market, the building's completion date will be somewhere between late 2010 and mid-2012.

"We hope we're able to (add the residential portion) right away," Bishop Burton said.

Parking structures on all three blocks of the project already are under construction, all of which are slated to be completed by summer 2009.

Construction on the 50,000-square-foot Harmons grocery store planned for 100 South between State Street and 200 East is set to begin this summer, with a late-2009 target for completion.