By Matt Valley
LAS VEGAS — City Creek Center, a mixed-use development in the heart of Salt Lake City, is this year’s VIVA Best-of-the-Best Award winner in the sustainable design/development category, the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) announced Sunday.
The VIVA Best-of-the-Best Awards presentation at the Las Vegas Convention Center capped the opening day of RECon. More than 33,000 retail and shopping center professionals from across the globe are gathered here this week to network, do deals and partake in educational sessions. The largest convention of its kind in the industry, RECon also features 1,000 exhibitors.
The VIVA Best-of-the-Best Awards recognize the most outstanding examples of shopping center design and development, sustainability, marketing and community service worldwide. VIVA stands for “vision, innovation, value and achievement.”
City Creek Center, which opened in 2012, is owned and managed by Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based Taubman Centers Inc. (NYSE: TCO).Taubmanco-developed the center with City Creek Reserve Inc., the real estate arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Callison served as the design architect on the project, while Hobbs + Black Architects served as the production/executive architect. The mixed-use project is a 20-acre urban redevelopment of two city blocks.
“City Creek is an outstanding example of visionary architectural achievement in sustainability and innovative design,” says Michael Kercheval, president and CEO of ICSC. “As the industry continues its positive momentum, we will begin to see further developments in the United States, and City Creek has set the bar for what that development will look like.”
City Creek Center in Salt Lake City
City Creek Center is the retail centerpiece of one of the nation's largest mixed-use downtown redevelopment projects. The fashion and dining destination includes a new two-story retail center and more than 500 residential rental units over four levels of underground parking, all within a downtown setting that features views of Main Street and the surrounding mountains.
The center's shopping and leisure space features a 30,000 square foot retractable roof, outdoor dining, a creek that runs through the property, a pedestrian sky bridge and two 18-foot waterfalls.
Five years in the making, City Creek Center is truly an authentic urban, mixed-use experience, seamlessly weaving office towers, a hotel, condominiums and commercial property together with over 100 stores and restaurants, according to ICSC. Included on the tenant roster are big-name retailers such as Nordstrom, Macy's, Tiffany & Co., Michael Kors, Coach and BRIO Tuscan Grill.
This LEED-certified center — complete with streetscapes, public areas and green space — brings nature into the urban environment. The project has had a tremendously positive impact on the surrounding community, according to ICSC, revitalizing a previously underutilized downtown with a world-class shopping and entertainment gem at its core.
Immediately following the VIVA Best-of-the-Best Awards, ICSC conducted an interview with Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter. Stone talked about his journey in launching the company and the lessons learned.
Stone said that had he not been so invested emotionally in Twitter, he probably would have crumbled under the weight of the criticism in the early years following its launch. “Everyone was telling us that Twitter was stupid, it was useless. No one wants to know what you had for lunch. This is dumb.”
The criticism just rolled off him like water off a duck's back. In fact, he recalls one naysayer remarking, “Twitter is the Seinfeld of the Internet. It's a website about nothing.” Stone loved the hit TV comedy Seinfeld, so he took the comment as a compliment and posted it to Twitter’s website as a testimonial.
If you have an emotional attachment to your work, success is not guaranteed, said Stone. However, if you are unattached emotionally to your work, failure is fairly certain.