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The plan for a bridge

As the process of planning of the second downtown mall began, City Planners and mall developers imagined the ultimate in shopper comfort and convenience: a beautiful bridge connecting the two malls together.

The South-end retailers begin to see a serious problem. With approximately one-third of Main Street under construction, retailers on Broadway and Exchange place, such as Auerbach's, Paris Company, Keith O'brien and Standard Optical, were still being forced to endure the series of city beautification projects that were ruining retail activity for their end of Main Street.

While much of downtown was now closed, they were still open for business. Shoppers, however, didn't wish to avoid dirt piles and construction crews to shop at their stores. The result was that nobody was coming downtown and their business began realizing financial problems. The Merchants Association, then realized that once the dust had cleared they would be left, not with a great hope for the future, but instead a monolithic giant on the South side that could be the "final nail in their coffin," according to Richard Schubach. (read Deseret News archive on beautification project)

The Merchants Association, which was made up of twelve long-time-local-merchants, decided to fight with a singular voice against the sky bridge plan. They believed the sky bridge would dramatically imbalance the retail power from the on-street retailers to the malls. Richard Schubach, co-owner of Standard Optical said, "the existence of the bridge would be an attempt by the two malls to monopolize the buying public."

Debate Heats Up on Skyway Plan

The Salt Lake Tribune July 28th, 1978

Large format: read article

Debate heats Up on Skyway Plan. Retailers feared that the new development would dominate Main Street retail with a skyway connecting the two malls.


Arnold Richer of Auerbach's, a local department store that had existed in downtown Salt Lake City for nearly 100 years at the time said, "the raised crosswalk would destroy the southern end of the city." The final decision to build the sky bridge was axed because City Planers were finally listening to what would be a last request by many on the Downtown Merchant Association's. After they won this small victory, many of the men on the Merchants Association would retire, sell or close their doors.

Large format: read article

Salt Lake Tribune August, 13, 1978

Officials 'Torpedo' Skyway Proposal

 

 


As it turned out even without the skyway the malls did monopolize the buying public and nearly all retail dollars in downtown Salt Lake City. The Z.C.M.I shopping Center and the Crossroads Mall, attracted the public and fan fair. New to Salt Lake City was Nordstrom's and Weinstocks. After 114 years in business Auerbach's department store closed just three years after the opening of the Z.C.M.I mall and six months before the completion of the Crossroads Mall.