Since I know you guys are all visual and not into a wall of text.
Here is what I think you could do with 30 million dollars.
A lot has been said about retail since the recovery from the recession. Here is a brief restating of the facts:
1. The major retail hubs that have formed like Saks Fifth Avenue are still king and still thriving with the most high-end stores and are seemingly immune to a weakening middle class (the malls the One Percent shop at). The closet place the One Percent shops between SLC and Denver is Las Vegas.
2. Indoor malls that are in market hotspots (perfect locations) have been able to grow without rebuilds. Fashion Place mall is the only clear example of this in Utah. The location and ease of vehicle access at the convergence of I-15 and 2-15 has made this a winner for decades.
3. The internet and ease of access via smartphones that most people own has cut out of the broad market share of every other mall not fitting the above criteria. Couple that with a general overbuild of malls and continual overbuilding of malls happening now in Utah.
Given the above facts let’s consider our retail situation downtown. On 3rd West and Main Street you have a lot of independent and local restaurants, bars, clubs, and shops. The overall health is good and getting better. Rents are going up and the quality is going up.
There is a unified effort by the City, the Church, and the Chamber of Commerce to retrofit and restructure downtown with an aim towards one giant integrated and urban themed downtown experience. The brand of downtown is now an urban lifestyle alternative to the sea of suburbia surrounding it. This means better transit, and more equitable streets for pedestrians and bikes. If downtown is going to succeed it has to create a kind of critical mass that pulls people out of the suburbs into it because of more than just a mall. And yes there is an emphasis on people living above retail, but that has more to do with filling the streets with people to attract more people. Make no mistake, downtown still needs to pull people in from commuting distances to succeed in the way we all want it to.
Which brings us to the Gateway. The Gateway is not a part of this urban fabric that has been strengthened throughout downtown over the last 10 years. It is not built around an urban counterculture to Utah suburban life. The massing is giant like that of the old down town malls with ZCMI and Crossroads. It’s a giant wall that marks the end of walkable downtown. The least walkable side of the mall is the side facing the rest of downtown because that is where they wanted to catch the most car traffic for the parking entrances. City Creek Center knew car traffic would be their most important carrier of customers to their property, but they also knew that accommodating cars while prioritizing pedestrians would be more important for the urban brand. This contrast is why City Creek Center is urban and The Gateway is Suburban.
The error with the Gateway was the assumption that people just didn’t like old things and so a newer mall built on suburban values could weather the storm. They took an indoor mall and put apartments on top and took the roof off, but it is still an indoor mall in most respects. It’s still a fortress and a visual dead end.
30 million is still a lot of money. It is certainly enough money to tear down Dick’s and rebuild a kind of corridor with shops on both sides that will perforate that a critical segment of the dead end (the area that could get spill off pedestrians from every event held at Vivint Arena). This is a basic one tenant building. We’re not talking about tearing down the old Key Bank building for the sake of pedestrian traffic flow at City Creek Center. It’s very doable. The value of losing one big tenant to increase the overall value of that entire block while simultaneously creating multiple new spots for tenants along the sides of this corridor does not equal a long term loss of rental income. And if it helps save the entire lifestyle center, it would obviously be worth it even if it did.
There’s no way this place ever becomes a successful mall again if it stays suburban. At best it will just be a strip mall for all the people living nearby. And what you are all doing, suggesting stores and other things to save it, it’s not going to do anything. Sorry. Better stores won’t come until you fix the layout with the pedestrian and car interface. The Gateway needs to be reformed into the rest of the forming urban fabric of downtown.
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