Comments about ‘Mormon church acquires 13 acres in downtown Salt Lake City’

good news

the Mormon Church has done a lot to improve the downtown area

such as? I can't wait for the family friendly chain stores and restaurants to open up at creekside.

I would really like to see the church develop that area into a high density mixed used site, maybe with a public park included. It would certainly be better than the surface parking lot that is currently there.

Real Estate is cheap and will likely increase again in the future.

I am glad to see the revitalization of down town SLC. It is a beautiful city and anything the LDS church puts in will be great quality and will receive much use.

I'm wondering if the comments on this article could just be nice, reasonable and rational.

Anonymous | 4:32 p.m.

If you can't think of a single improvement the church has made in downtown SLC... You obviously don't live here.

How about the Tribune building (which was scheduled for demolition) but the church bought it and restored and retrofitted it to current building standards at their HUGE expense???

How about Temple Square, the Conference Center, the Main Street Plaza, the Church Office Building an plaza, the Eagle Gate community and Zion Towers community, the family history museum and other museums, the new mall, etc, the park and garden by the office building???

You really need to open your eyes and take the chip off your sholder!

Most of the comments here tend to be optomistic - the comments on a similar story on the Tribune website are a raving torrid of bigotry

This is one of the most prominant and importantly located sites in the City - I hope that the LDS Church will develop it with the same degree of sensitivity that they have done on their other development sites
I am not LDS but I do appreciate their efforts to stabilize the City Center

Earl Holding must need cash. He fought off the US Government who wanted to purchase the land for the courthouse which is to be built on the block north of this on west temple. The feds used 7 million of your dollars to move the Oddfellows Building, another 8 million dollars to buy the Shubrick building and more millions, to tear down and destroy the businesses that were paying taxes, so Earl Holding could have his giant parking lot. Now that it is all over he sells it to the Church!!! Shame on him!!! The feds could have had the new courthouse built by now on that site, and saved us millions of dollars! I would love to know what he sold it to the Church for! And the Vaticanization of the downtown Salt lake City continues... The church should be in the business of religion, not property development. Most conventions have been driven out of the Salt Palace due to this, and more will follow. What a disappointment to look at another parking lot, when businesses were destroyed for it.

My, my, anonymous. Ignorance is not fatal, but it certainly seems to be addictive.

The LDS church's contributions to SLC development are stunningly expensive and well-planned. The county could have purchased it "...for next to nothing" and the people could have done everything from a public, downtown park to tax revenue-producing accomodation buildings. But they apparently find no problem having a huge piece of blacktop in an area of the city that could otherwise have been turned into a thing of beauty and functionality. Nobody said elected officials had an abundance of forsight and public empathy, did they.

So let's give the church a chance to come up with something the city can be proud of, the profits of which go into serving the community's needy and world's disaster victims.

Your vitriolic attack on talk radio is just silly and inane, anonymous.

The LDS Church does it again. Everone thought the City Creek Center would be a disaster, but the plan is outstanding and a good investment. I cant wait to see the plan for this invesment as well. The LDS church is a real estate giant and has hundreds of experianced developers at their disposal.

at least there won't be a wal-mart or a Mickey D's around, yeah!!!!!!!!!

I don't understand why people have such beef with this subject. He wanted to sell it, the church wanted to buy it. It's their money, let them buy what they want with it.

The business of a religion is to try to improve lives.
It takes money and wise investment to pay for humanitarian aid, church houses and many other helpful programs.The L.D.S. is one of the best at helping people around the world.

I was worried about SLC's downtown area going downhill. This is good news for the area. No, I'm not LDS.

I agree both sides of this polarized discussion. The LDS church HAS done a lot of well planned great stuff for downtown.But there does exist a well justified concern that are dominating a bit.
I also agree that Church having people like Rush and Hannity on their radio station is alarming.The church not be so politically affilated with loose cannons such as these. I am not sure where it says in church doctrine you need to be Republican or Neo Con.

Actually, the income generated by the churches investments go a long way in providing for the needy and other operations.

the vultures of vitriol are pouncing on this news item.

bery true and right on the point indeed

very true indeed and right on point


sorry but i didnt realize that i misspelled and hit 'b' instead of 'v'