"The reality is that there are reasons why we're continuing to work with Boyer on this," he said. "They do have a relationship with the city. The same people they've been working with are the people they'll be working with going forward. Our people have worked with Boyer closely on this to make sure there aren't any problems in that regard."

The Boyer Co. bought the Union Pacific Depot in December 1999 from the state of Utah in a deal facilitated by funds from Salt Lake City's Redevelopment Agency.

Salt Lake City Council Chairman Dale Lambert said Friday he wasn't surprised at Boyer's announcement.

"Developers develop these things with the ultimate goal of hopefully selling them," Lambert said. "Generally they're in the business of developing, so ultimately they're not in the business of running shopping malls."

As a group, the Inland companies bought more than $4 billion worth of property in 2004, Fox said, ranking it among the fastest-growing retail property owners in the country.

The Promenade was one of those acquisitions, and Fox said it's possible Inland will do some more shopping of its own in Utah.

"Obviously, with The Promenade and now The Gateway, we're keeping our eyes on (Utah) as a potential market," Fox said. "If past history proves true, we've shown that we do like looking at more than one property in a given market. It just makes sense from a management perspective. So I would say there's definitely a possibility."

Inland's national headquarters is in Oak Brook, Ill., which is a suburb of Chicago.

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Contributing: Brady Snyder

E-mail: jnii@desnews.com