Developers defend downtown sky bridge plans

A sky bridge giving pedestrians a way to cross Main Street without actually stepping foot on the street will — perhaps ironically — bring new life to Main Street, the Salt Lake City Planning Commission was told Wednesday.

Designers and developers attempting to sell the commission on their vision of the proposed City Creek Center have in the past described the sky bridge as vital to the life of the center. Wednesday, they painted it as an asset rather than a necessary evil.

"We really want to invigorate Main Street," said Ron Loch, vice president of planning and design for the Taubman Co., contracted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to come up with a plan for the 20 downtown acres currently housing the Crossroads Plaza and ZCMI Center malls.

The sky bridge has been among the most controversial elements of the City Creek Center plans. It contradicts the city's master plan, which sees above-ground walkways on Main Street as an obstruction of ground-level views of Ensign Peak to the north.

Mayor Rocky Anderson has said he opposes the bridge because it would keep people off Main Street, which he wants to see enlivened.

Representatives from Property Reserve Inc., the church's real-estate arm, and its partners on the City Creek Center project plan a series of visits to commission meetings — this week's was the second — to answer commission questions and give new details of the plan.

Those details Wednesday spelled out a design model by which two levels of retail would encourage shoppers to make a loop, shopping along both levels and returning to their starting point.

Such a loop would be the most efficient for shoppers, and it would guarantee that, at some point, they would end up on Main Street, the officials said.

With a variety of retail stores and restaurants fronting Main Street, as well as banks and office space, shoppers would likely wander up and down Main Street before crossing to complete the loop, Loch said.

"Every circulation brings you back to Main Street," Taubman vice president for development Bruce Heckman said.

An attorney for PRI told the commission the master plan makes exceptions that allow sky bridges for such things as improving the economy. That would ultimately be determined by the City Council.

But commission members, while saying the new detail helped them better understand the plans, still expressed hesitation.

"That is an incredible view corridor there. Incredible," Commissioner Babs De Lay said. "Don't mess up that view."

She and Commissioner Prescott Muir said they would prefer to see an uncovered pedestrian bridge. De Lay said because of the view from an uncovered bridge, "People would want to get married there."