In a now-closed thread, poster "warning" soberly (and apparently quite confidently) declared:

"Just a warning:

"If you think the MORG is falling, I'd like you to remember that as financially tight as the investments into the City Creek Center have made the [Mormon] Church, the Church will make massive, massive gains f[rom] this project.

"It will allow the Church to gain a control and monopoly of the SLC economy. With the size of that place and all the shops, cafes, facilities etc; it will become a dominantly used place within the city. Although some may boycott it; people will flock around from all over the nearby areas and states to shop there.

"This will ensure almost infinite revenue for the Church outside of tithing and donations. The more that center makes, the more the Church will make. Making it financially more powerful and stronger than ever before meaning:

"More Mormon ads.

"More missionary materials.

"More investment into expanding the church into poorer nations where it is growing.

"More resources.

"More temples.

"The City Creek Center will make billions for the Church, meaning effectively it has found a way to fund itself without relying on tithing. As I believe that the Church can only depend on tithing revenue from Western nations. Despite high retention rates in Africa and a high rate of new congregations, the Church expanding there is nothing but a financial loss to them thus they've been needing to stretch the money from Western nations even more.

"The City Creek Center revenue will change that. Salt lake city's economy is growing rapidly and as its economy grows, if the Church has a monopoly on it . . . well."

("The City Creek Center will ensure the survival of the MORG," posted by "warning," on "Recovery from Mormonism" bulletin board, 4 May 2011, 10:45 a.m.; corrected for spelling, punctuation and capitalization)
_____


Who spiked your Postum, buddy?

The touted dynamism of American mega malls isn't exactly lighting up the national dawn skyline.

Take note, for example (and a big one, at that), of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of the country's second largest mall-development company.

From Salt Lake City's very own Mormon-owned KSL snooze station:

"General Growth Properties files for bankruptcy Mall owner files for bankruptcy; Utah malls to be affected

"April 16th, 2009

"SALT LAKE CITY -- The nation's second-largest mall owner General Growth Properties filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on Thursday. The company owns several malls in Utah.

With the filing, the company says it hopes to restructure and "refinance debt. "Our restructuring efforts will be invisible to the tens of thousands of customers who visit our properties every day," said company President and COO Tom Nolan.

"However, officials in cities with malls owned by GGP have been told some under-performing strip malls will be closed. They haven't been named yet, but Murray City officials have been told some are in Utah.

"That begs another big question: What will happen at the Cottonwood Mall? It's one of six malls owned by GGP, and plans to build a high-end mixed use development on the mall site have been in the works for years.

"GGP also owns the Cache Valley, Newgate, Fashion Place, Provo Towne Center and Red Cliffs malls. While our calls to the company were not returned, they have issued a press release on their Web site stating those shopping centers will remain open. [Click here to read the entire press release from GGP]

"As for the Cottonwood Mall, the city of Holladay says they've been told development will go ahead, and they're hopeful that really will happen.

"'Here's 58 acres, probably one of the most prime pieces of real estate in the state of Utah, and the driving economic force in the city of Holladay. And so it is extraordinary, and that's why we think something extraordinary will take place there, because it's so unique,' said Holladay Mayor Dennis Webb.

"There are also changes at Fashion Place Mall. Murray City Mayor Dan Snarr says contractors have temporarily been pulled off construction on the south side, and demolition of the old Nordstrom has been delayed due to Thursday's announcement.

"Snarr says he's not too concerned by the Chapter 11 filing. He believes this will give General Growth Properties a chance to work with creditors rather than liquidate."

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=6182221&autostart=y
_____


Some background on General Growth Properties and its bankruptcy:

"Properties

"General Growth Properties owns, has interest in, or manages more than 180 regional shopping malls in forty-five states. It also has interest in seven master planned communities: Columbia, Emerson, Fairwood and Stone Lake in Maryland; Summerlin in Nevada; and, Bridgeland and The Woodlands in Texas.[2] General Growth is also beginning the process for the development of a new community in Hawaii: the Ward Neighborhood Master Plan.

"General Growth owns the largest open-air shopping mall in the world, Ala Moana Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Ala Moana Center is also a flagship of a General Growth Properties tourism program called 'America's Premier Shopping Places.' It lists fifty tourist destinations that include the historic Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston, South Street Seaport in New York City and Water Tower Place in Chicago.[7] General Growth Properties has classified twenty-two malls as "Platinum Properties"; these malls are occupied by luxury brand stores such as Tiffany, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, Louis Vuitton, Saks Fifth Avenue, Hugo Boss, and Barneys New York.
_____


"History

" . . . In 197[2], . . . General Growth Properties (GGP) . . . became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. However, by 1984, management felt that the company's stock price did not fully reflect the value of its business. So management decided to sell the company's assets and take the company private. GGP sold 19 malls to Equitable Real Estate in an $800 million deal – considered the largest single real estate transaction in the United States at that time – but continued to manage the malls as part of the deal. Ultimately, shareholders realized a 22% internal rate of return on their investment from the original initial public offering (IPO) through 1984. GGP issued another public offering in 1993 to raise money for future expansion plans. In 1995, GGP moved its headquarters from Des Moines, Iowa, to Chicago.

"Starting in 1993, GGP expanded its portfolio dramatically by acquiring existing properties and constructing new malls. In 1995, it acquired Homart Development Company, the mall development subsidiary of Sears.[10] On November 12, 2004, GGP acquired The Rouse Company, including its Howard Hughes Corporation land development subsidiary, in the largest retail real estate merger in American history. GGP grew to be the nation's second-largest mall operator. . . .
_____


"Company Debt Crisis

"GGP reported in excess of $25 billion in debt (mostly mortgages) as of September 30, 2008. In late November 2008, GGP missed a deadline to repay $900 million in loans backed by two Las Vegas retail properties. This meant that GGP lenders could issue a notice of default, which would make GGP seek protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

"In December 2008 the 'Wall Street Journal' reported that GGP would seek bankruptcy protection if it could not renegotiate its loans. Its share price had fallen by 97% over the previous six months.
_____


"Exit of Bucksbaum Family

"The company's problems forced the ouster of CEO John Bucksbaum, though he remained chairman of the board. On October 26, 2008, Bucksbaum resigned after the GGP board learned that the family trust violated company policy by providing loans to company officers without notifying the board. Director Adam Metz became CEO.[12] The value of the Bucksbaum family fortune shrank by 97 percent since December 2007.
_____


"Bankruptcy

"GGP failed to reach a deal with its creditors; and on April 16, 2009, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy: the largest real estate bankruptcy since at least 1980, and the largest ever filing by a mall operator.

"According to its bankruptcy filing, GGP had about $29.6 billion in assets at the end of 2008, and $27.3 billion in debt. GGP suspended its dividend, halted or slowed nearly all development projects and cut its work force by more than 20%. GGP also sold some of its non-mall assets. Chief Executive Adam Metz said, 'While we have worked tirelessly in the past several months to address our maturing debts, the collapse of the credit markets has made it impossible for us to refinance maturing debt outside of Chapter 11.' GGP obtained $375 million in debtor-in-possession financing. Mall gift cards remained usable.
_____


"Proposed Takeover and Investment Offers

"On November 19, 2009, it was reported that GGP may be acquired by its larger rival Simon Property Group in a deal that could be worth up to $30 billion if GGP was acquired in its entirety. Simon has hired property investment firm Cohen & Steers, as well as the Lazard investment bank and the Wachtell Lipton Rosen &  Katz law firm to explore the possibility of acquiring GGP.

"On February 16, 2010, Simon announced that it placed a bid on February 8 to acquire General Growth Properties in a deal worth $10 billion. However, the bid was rejected by General Growth twice during the week the bid was announced. On February 19, 2010, a shareholder filed a lawsuit (Young v. Bucksbaum) against GGP's board of directors for rejecting Simon's bid, accusing chairman John Bucksbaum and six other board members for breaching their fiduciary duty to GGP's investors.

"On February 24, 2010, GGP finalized a deal with Canadian property company Brookfield Asset Management that would involve up to a $2.625 billion equity investment.

"On March 2, 2010, General Growth Properties, Inc. announced that it applied to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange ('NYSE'). The company expects the shares of its common stock to begin trading on the NYSE on March 5, 2010, under the symbol 'GGP.'

"On April 14, 2010, Simon Property Group announced a $2.5 billion equity investment offer worth the same price per share as Brookfield's offer. Simon claims that the deal is more favorable to GGP and its equity holders than Brookfield's offer, stating that it would eliminate the highly dilutive warrants that GGP proposed to issue to Brookfield, Pershing Square and Fairholme Capital. Simon's offer also includes a co-investment commitment by Paulson & Co worth $1 billion. However, Simon Property Group has not ruled out a full takeover of General Growth; Simon claims that their investment offer would give them more time to work out their differences concerning antitrust issues.
_____


"Departing Bankruptcy

"GGP hired Sandeep Mathrani as its new chief executive, and on November 8, 2010, it left bankruptcy, and offered new stock shares to the public.

"The exit from bankruptcy included the creation of Howard Hughes Corp., as a spinoff, with each holder of a General Growth share was scheduled to receive one share of new General Growth stock and 0.0983 share of Hughes Corp. common stock. Hughes Corp.'s assets will include Summerlin, a 22,500-acre master-planned community in Las Vegas, and South Street Seaport, a shopping center in Manhattan. Unlike General Growth, Hughes Corp. won't be a real estate investment trust, according to a registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Growth_Properties

*****


Well, that was certainly interesting and informative.

Remember, the original voice-of-"warning" poster emphatically asserted:

"I'd like you to remember [how] the investments into the City Creek Center have made the [Mormon] church . . . financially tight . . . ."

Uh-huh.

All you faithful Mormons, led by your divinely-inspired Profits, collectively squeeze your eyes shut real tight and pray with all your Holy Ghost light and might tonight that the national economic reality of plight and fright will somehow miss Mormonism's City Creek Monster Mall. Right. :)

IN THE NAME OF MAN-TO-GOD, IT'S ALIVE!!!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xos2MnVxe-c



Edited 14 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2011 04:52PM by steve benson.

I think it's quite obvious that the City Creek Mall shall swallow up all other malls. It will grow and flourish and spread from the rivers to the ends of the earth, and survive when all others should be laid in ruins.

The failings of GGP are evidence of this!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2011 03:33PM by max.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2011 03:34PM by steve benson.

Yes, one must not shop in any of those other malls for they are an abomination in the Lord's eyes. Only the one true City Creek Mall With Fake Stream shall inherit the PTL Empire once reigned over by Jim and Tammy Bakker and whose monstrous Disneylandesque Christian themepark lies in ruins ala Eve of Destruction.

A small chuckle began deep inside her chest as the future unfolded in Panoramic vision before her eyes. The Temple spires gleaming bravely in back of the dark hulk of the aborted construction of the City Creek Mall, it's Sky Walk silouetted shamefully in a final Spruce Gooselike nod.

The Mormon church today choked to death as it devoured the downtown city of Salt Lake in a final, greedy, capitalistic spending frenzy which seemed ill-advised to its friends and openly exploitative to its enemies. Year after year the costs soared and the anger of members increased as the Church threw more and more resources into the money pit, trying to save money by recruiting volunteers to replace workers at every level of church function.

It only flew for three months. Once the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had sung its last Grand Opening Theme and packed up and left, the crowds dwindled until the site became a place where tourists came to gawk at the greatest church-based failure since the closing of the Christian theme park in the South.

Local merchants had not enjoyed the prospect of having the Mormon church as their competitor in the marketplace. Many did not understand the Lord's True Real Estate arm and special missionary teams were dispatched with memorized explanations.

Finally, Comedy Central opened a branch in the Mormon Mall, as the place was called, to save transportation expenses for the production team.

She closed her journal as clouds gathered and her vision ended. So blessed.

Anagrammy

Who will drive from Midvale, Holladay, Sandy etc. etc. downtown to buy anything on a regular basis?? Virtually no one.
The Great White Tower will have to make a proclamation virtually demanding the sheep to shop at City Creek to stay in good standing in the Church.
They've built a giant dinosaur because the all seeing 15 can only remember when Malls had any significance. I'm sure many of them are still curious as how bread is sliced.

Normal investors walk away from a money pit. The Mormon Church can't, because they can't afford to appear to have made a mistake. That might indicate that they are uninspired or WRONG or something. So, they will continue to quietly pour incredible amounts of money into this boondoggle until Monson is living out of his car. City Creek Mall cost more per square foot than the Burj, and Utah doesn't have the wealth of Saudi Arabia to recoup that kind of initial investment.

It's possible that this mall might be around in 30 years, but it's still a bad investment and it will limit the buying power the Mormon church will have in the future. That will not help them in any way.

GGP isn't partnering with the church to build City Creek. I am pretty sure it is Taubman or something. So I don't understand all the info on GGP

I will agree with you that I don't think City Creek is the solid investment that others are saying, but I don't think it is going bankrupt anytime soon. This mall is getting an incredbile amount of hype. I imagine that it will be around for years to come.

I don't know if the church is trying to make money off it or not. I think that it is more about control of Salt Lake. They realize that SLC is becoming more liberal and want to protect their prized pig. I just can't see why they would be shelling this much money into this if it was purely for profit.
This mall isn't going to be repaying a 5 billion dollar debt anytime soon. But it ain't going away either. I think the church would gladly lose money on this to protect their headquarters. They are all about image.

I would prefer a mall over another conference center. I can at least use the mall. That's why you'll never hear me complaining about the church building a mall.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2011 03:48PM by steve benson.

Oh, I must have misread your original post. It should be interesting to see how this all sorts out. It is befuddling that SLC is going to have three malls: City creek, Gateway, and Trolley Square. I am not sure the demographics work out completely with that.

Is the property on the tax Rolls?

if it is, it could be a burden to tscc.
However....the View condos have a Lot of Appeal for-to the Sheeple!

How are those prices going? (near) Sold-Out yet?

Yes, all for profit ventures for the church are taxable. That being said, the church is very crafty on paying as little taxes as possible in a legal manner.

If you want to see how many spots are still available, just go to this website and check out the floor plans:

http://www.citycreekliving.com/

I had some free time, so going through the floorplans, I added up how many are sold:

Promontory: 91 available, 42 reserved/sold, 56 for future development.

Regent: 62 available, 89 reserved/sold.

Richards East: 39 available, 15 reserved/sold.

Richards West: 24 available, 14 reserved/sold.

That's 50% available, 37% reserved/sold, 13% reserved for future development.

A lady in my ward sells these things, and I know she just recently sold one to a GA. I wonder if someone is asking wealthy GAs or Mormons to buy them...

I'm also very interested to see if we ever get any solid information and how much money they end up losing on this monstrosity.

Those numbers actually are not that bad compared to what I'm seeing here in Florida. They might be hiding the vacancies by only putting a few of them up for sale at a time. They could also be buying them up to make the numbers look good. That happened at the Channelside Towers here in Tampa. They claim unbelievable sales, but then you drive by the buildings at night and almost all the lights are out.

Even if they sell them all, it's going to be a drop in the bucket towards paying these things off. Even if they average a half million/condo (which they won't), and sell all 432, that's still only about $200 million, for something that cost $4 billion. So they're going to make the other $3.8 billion on the mall part? Good luck!

I'm sure they've already reduced prices so much that they aren't at all profitable.

You're right. The condos are just a drop in the bucket on the overall mall project - about 5%. City Creek optimists are talking about the condos like they are the bread and butter of the mall project. I wonder how the annual cost to keep this City Creek boondoggle above water will compare with some of their other expenses, like the annual cost to subsidize BYU, for example.

"Well, yes, sir. All of the money went into the City Creek development."

Did you ever want to join up with Jack Anderson and his boss--what's his name?

. . . and, no, I didn't want to join up with Anderson (although I'm currently reading a book about how he and Nixon succeeded in permanently poisoning the Washington press culture).



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2011 04:30PM by steve benson.

just curious

will TSCC tout this as 'god's own mall' and hope the faithful will flock to it like a consumerist temple

or will TSCC distance themselves a little - like they do with most of their business ventures - to avoid being seen as 'too wordly'

The Mormon church even made a statement to the effect that they don't have a problem with the responsible consumption of alcohol by adults. I just about fell of my chair when I read that. (Sorry, don't have the quote handy.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2011 04:11PM by Makurosu.

Everyone exclaimed what a boost to downtown it would be. People from all over Northern Utah would come to shop at it.

Case closed.

Will this mean that TSCC will become less greedy? Will they once again hire cleaners, clerks, gardeners and seminary teachers? Will they pay for missions? Will they hire musicians? Will their silly insurance company allow candles in church? Somehow I seriously doubt it. The "kingdom of god" is clearly more concerned with profit than with it's "citizens". I think that no matter what the morg will continue milking any penny they can out of their members. Wether it is to compensate for this bad investment or to build some other useless piece of architecture somewhere else.

The problem with church leaders is that they are old. Malls were big in the 1980s, but many of them still think it's the 1980s.

Check out this mall industry and find out if your childhood mall is still alive:

http://www.deadmalls.com/

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2011 07:04PM by steve benson.

If the Church secretly buys the GGP malls and pays for them in cash.

IT'S A BUSINESS, after all, specializing in real estate acquisition and development, while promoting Jesus as a profitable sideline.

and Rouse was one of the biggest along with Simon malls,Taubman and others.... one of the mall i used to do shows in(baseball hall of fame, football hall of fame and others).... WEstminster Mall in Westminster Co.... was just sold to the the city of Westminster...and they plan on tearing it down! that is a 1.5 million square foot mall......that would make it a fairly large mall.... now gone!!! the internet is playing a part in the demise of the regional malls...although some of the regional malls are still strong... it aint the golden age any more. I got to see the country with that job!! :) i even was in SLC a few times and I did some shows at the Salt Palace... which i hear is closed now?? <<sigh>> ah the "good ole days"!!

...then close everything on Sunday.

If I were a visitor to SLC (sadly, I live here) I'd be very pissed at a cult that brought me here and then wouldn't server me food or alcohol on Sunday.

I think that "doctrine" will end up changing.

We all know Postum isn't made any more!

;-)




It will be very interesting to see where that silly mall takes LDS Inc...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2011 06:19PM by steve benson.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2011 06:19PM by steve benson.