Displaced mall tenants are giving downtown the brushoff

There once was hope that many displaced tenants from the soon-to-be-radically-remodeled Crossroads Plaza and ZCMI Center malls would find homes on Main Street or at least somewhere downtown.

But as construction grows near and more and more stores vacate the malls, hopes are dwindling.

Despite lobbying efforts from public officials and even the lure of free taxpayer cash, tenants are moving elsewhere or simply closing their doors.

"We made a gallant effort," Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency Board Chairman Eric Jergensen said. "Some of the people were really not interested in staying in business, and that's fine, but at least we made the effort. Our desire was just to create the atmosphere where if people wanted to pursue staying downtown they could."

The former hope was that while the malls were under construction, Main Street would again be full of tenants, instead of "For Rent" signs.

Hopes were so high, in fact, that the City Council last April allocated $100,000 in free cash that would be doled out in $20,000 increments to any business that wanted to move out of the malls and onto downtown streets. Council members even said they would allocate more cash if demand was high.

The cash was supposed to help tenants with the cost of moving and potentially upgrading their new digs.

Back in April, downtown advocates pleaded with the council to allocate the free cash or potential downtown tenants would be lost.

Downtown real estate broker Vasilios Priskos, who was helping displaced mall retailers find new homes downtown, said as many as 30 locally owned businesses could be in need of relocation.

Without the new grant program, Priskos said many of those businesses would close and never return to downtown.

"Once they've closed their doors, they're not going to come back," he said then.

Fast forward to August and there has been only one taker — the owner of a pair of cellular telephone kiosks inside both malls who wants to move his business to Main.

"Everyone else is thinking they're going to go somewhere else" besides downtown, RDA executive director Dave Oka said. "To tell you the truth, we welcome anyone that wants to stay on Main Street and would encourage them to give me a call."

The kiosk grant will be considered by the city's RDA Board next week.