Rocky fighting skybridge

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is considering selling access to the air space over a block of Main Street in an effort to stop the LDS Church from building a skybridge there.

Anderson has been a leading opponent of the planned pedestrian skywalk since Property Reserve Inc., the real-estate arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, announced it last October as part of the City Creek Center.

"I'll do everything I can to stop that skybridge from going in," Anderson said Tuesday. "It completely cheapens our Main Street. It by definition takes people off the street."

Last month, he was actively shopping for a nonprofit organization or other entity to buy air rights over the street from the city, a Deseret Morning News review of e-mails from his office shows. However, his efforts so far have fallen through.

The mayor is responsible for selling air rights to a developer for projects such as the skybridge, and Anderson has said he will refuse. However, when he leaves office early in 2008, he will have no control over what his replacement does.

City Creek Center is PRI's redevelopment plan for two blocks at the heart of downtown Salt Lake City. Currently the site of the ZCMI Center and Crossroads Plaza malls, the blocks will house a 20-acre mixed-use development by mid-2011, according to PRI.

That development will include residential and office space, and it will also have two levels of indoor-outdoor shopping on both sides of Main Street. Taubman Centers Inc., PRI's retail partner in the project, insists that a walking bridge connecting the second floors across Main Street is vital to the project's success.

PRI officials on Wednesday referred requests for comment on Anderson's efforts to Taubman officials, who could not be reached.

The City Council in April amended two downtown planning documents that previously had barred skybridges from certain downtown streets, including Main. The amendment allows for the council to consider a skybridge when the developer has shown that there are no viable alternatives.

For a design to be approved, the developer must convince the council that the skybridge would have a minimal impact on views, would make use of urban-design elements that integrate the project into the rest of downtown and wouldn't stifle street-level pedestrian activity.

Earlier this month, Anderson vetoed the council's approval of the amendment, but the next day, the council overrode that veto.

In an April 19 e-mail to the Trust for Public Land, a San Francisco-based conservationist nonprofit, Anderson solicited them for the sale of the air rights.