City Creek Center wins cheers

Wasatch Front residents have been paying attention to the details of the planned redevelopment in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, and so far they like what they've seen.

According to a new Dan Jones & Associates poll for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV, 76 percent of respondents are at least somewhat familiar with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' plans to replace the dying downtown malls with the City Creek Center, and 68 percent say their opinion of the plans is somewhat or very favorable.

The poll, conducted Oct. 10-12, solicited responses from 417 residents of Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Tooele an Wasatch counties and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Only 9 percent of respondents said they have an unfavorable view of the plans. The mainly positive opinion will apparently bring more business to downtown once the mixed-use development is finished, the poll shows.

Some 26 percent said City Creek Center will probably increase their shopping visits downtown, and another 12 percent say they would definitely shop downtown more.

"That's certainly good news. That's the intention of it," Downtown Alliance Executive Director Bob Farrington said. "With that high a number, once it's open and word of mouth gets out and people can really see it and touch it and tell their friends and family about it, I suspect it could get even higher than that."

The biggest increase in business will apparently come from the north. About half of the poll's Davis County respondents said they would probably or definitely shop downtown more, compared with 36 percent in Salt Lake County and 37 percent in Utah County.

Meanwhile, construction could keep some visitors away.

The project is expected to take five years to complete, and 26 percent of poll respondents said they will be less likely to visit downtown during that period; 71 percent said construction will make no difference.

Farrington said he isn't too worried about those num- bers.

"Once people see and recognize that it's still going to be possible to get in and around downtown, that the construction is going to be contained to two blocks and really won't affect much or any of the road network and how you get around, I think that number would certainly decrease," he said. "I think people are having to deal a little bit with the unknown."

In August, Salt Lake City hired a downtown construction ombudsman to try to alleviate construction headaches, and the City Council is considering an ordinance that would ease the process of making temporary concessions to developers aimed at speeding the process.