Malls getting big transformations

If you like to shop Salt Lake's malls, your retail experience is about to change.

And not just because downtown's Crossroads Plaza and ZCMI Center will soon fall to the wrecking ball.

Two weeks ago, Trolley Square's new owner and developers, ScanlanKemperBard Companies and Blake Hunt Ventures, joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Macerich Co., Satterfield Helm Management, Forest City Development and others in announcing ambitious plans for retail redevelopment — a roster that now includes most of the Salt Lake metropolitan area's established shopping centers.

And which, according to national and local industry-watchers, marks the crest of a retail development wave sweeping the country: the end of elephantine slabs of concrete enclosing shopping caverns connecting Dillards to Macy's to Borders, via industrially lit corridors lined with smaller retailers and restaurants.

"Without doubt, it's a trend," said Malachy Kavanagh, spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers, the global trade association of the shopping center industry. And that trend is away from massive enclosed malls toward brighter, airier "lifestyle centers."

"It provides an experience," said Celeste Neil, senior property manager at South Towne Center. "That's the intent: to address multiple aspects of (shoppers') experience, to keep them on the property for as long as we can. We want to increase the length of their stay, and we want them to be happy while they're here."

South Towne, in Sandy, announced in April it will build a 100,000-square-foot lifestyle center onto the mall's west side, creating a hybrid, indoor/outdoor shopping center — the first of its kind in the state.

In the past year, in addition to the South Towne expansion, large-scale developments or renovations have been announced in downtown Salt Lake City with the LDS Church's City Creek project and the Trolley Square developments. Other projects are planned at Valley Fair Mall in West Valley City and Traverse Mountain and Sundance Commons in Utah County, to name a few. Speculation also continues to swirl around possible announcements about Fashion Place and Cottonwood malls.

To date, none has broken ground, though the City Creek development is expected to begin demolition this month.

South Towne is in talks with potential vendors right now, and senior marketing manager Natalie Watson said it is that process that will determine when construction will begin.

"We're working on assembling retailers that are upscale and appropriate for the idea we have of the expansion, to ensure its success," Watson said. She did not disclose which retailers the mall is courting, nor when construction on the expansion will begin.