$1.5B City Creek Center on schedule for March 22 opening

SALT LAKE CITY — The clock is ticking toward the highly
anticipated opening of Utah's top retail development.

Fewer than 60 days remain until the scheduled March 22 grand
opening of City
Creek^[1] Center, a
$1.5 billion downtown project that is expected to revitalize
Salt Lake City's central business district.

Upon completion, City Creek will feature approximately 700,000
square feet of shopping and dining space, along with 536 new
condominiums or apartments. Among the unique features of the
23-acre development are a 30,000-square-foot fully retractable
glass roof, a sky bridge over Main Street and a re-creation of
City Creek, the snow-fed stream that once meandered through the
city.

City Creek general manager Linda Wardell of Taubman Centers
Inc. said the project is on schedule for its planned March
opening.

"The construction of the core (retail) building is really
already complete," she said. "We've been (testing) all of our
systems and know how they are going to operate."

She noted that the individual retail stores are in their
"crunch time" as they work to meet their own deadlines for the
impending opening.

"Usually, everything is simultaneously constructed," she said.
"With City Creek, because of its mixed-used nature, the core
part of our building was built first and then the stores were
built in."

Taubman will operate the retail portion of the project, which
will contain approximately 80 stores and restaurants. Wardell
said one-third of the stores at City Creek will be unique to
Utah, which will "keep bringing people back over and over
again."

Headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., the company currently
operates 26 retail shopping centers across the country, with
six others in development — including properties in Asia and
Puerto Rico.

To date, Taubman has invested about $76 million into the
project.

The International Council of Shopping Centers has said that
City Creek Center will be the only retail center opening in the
U.S. in 2012, meaning the opening will likely garner national
and even global attention, Wardell said.

Inquiries have come from media worldwide to attend the grand
opening as well as other retail developers from around the
globe. One local industry analyst said the new development
would likely help bolster the overall strength of the entire
downtown retail sector, including The Gateway.

"Retail growth will be slower at the beginning, but overall
both projects will in time become thriving destination projects
in the downtown area," said J.R. Moore, vice president of
retail properties with commercial real estate firm CB Richard
Ellis in Salt Lake City. "They'll fuel each other and make
downtown an even more attractive place for shoppers and
retailers."

References

1. ^{^} City Creek
   (www.deseretnews.com)