Rocky dislikes LDS plan for 'a huge mall'

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson has reservations about the redevelopment of downtown Salt Lake City.

Thursday, he questioned some of the plans of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and called for a more open public discussion of the church's $500 million downtown redevelopment project.

While he likes the housing and mixed-use aspects of the project, the mayor said it may have been a mistake for the church to partner with Michigan-based mall developer Taubman Co.

Instead, the church should consult urban and downtown planners and work to create a more walkable, traditional downtown setting with smaller, cut-up blocks and less enclosed retail, he said.

"Everybody ought to be talking to urban design and downtown redesign specialists and talking about what our downtown should be," Anderson said

"The city as a whole has a huge stake in this."

Thursday, LDS Church spokesman Dale Bills said the church and its development team wouldn't comment on the mayor's concerns.

Anderson doesn't like current plans to create a new massive enclosed mall on much of the space that currently houses two massive enclosed malls — the ZCMI Center and Crossroads Plaza.

"Our downtown should not be comprised of a huge mall," Anderson said, adding, "I've never liked the idea of relying upon enclosed malls for this project . . . I'm concerned about an enclosed mall suddenly becoming the main focus of our downtown."

Still, Anderson told reporters after speaking at the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics that there was little the city could do to stop Taubman and the church from building a new enclosed mall.

The mayor pledged that he and his staffers will vigorously insist that city zoning requirements and master plans be followed and renewed his commitment to fight against any sky bridge that could connect two mall halves over Main Street.

"There's not a city you can point to in the world that put an enclosed mall in the core of the city and people pointed to it and said, 'That's what makes this a great city,' " Anderson said.

The mayor said current downtown plans seem to envision a replication of The Gateway shopping center.

"We shouldn't be trying to replicate Gateway just putting a roof over the top of it," he said.