The City Center Project
Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:10 pm
I was looking at RFM this afternoon and saw this interesting post a couple of weeks ago by someone named “The Mighty Builder” :
I suspect some of this is speculation on his part - assuming he is related to the project.
The question I have.. Do you think the church is having trouble swallowing this boondoggle in the making? Could this project really cost 10 or more BILLION?
OK, let’s get this out in the open. We are a construction consulting, inspection and testing firm that deals with theses types of projects.
First let’s get the cost speculation resolved.
Currently the end cost is 10 billion dollars. This is their budget not a speculation. For reference let’s use the Conference Center. When we first started it, the budget was announced at 350 million dollars (the amount stated on the building permit application). Then with the design build and accelerated construction demanded by the Mormon church costs rose. The end cost was 1.2 billion dollars (if you take a tour now and ask one of the guides they will proudly admit this fact). The Conference Center is only one city block and consists of five stories with underground parking. The City Creek Center is going to be two and a half blocks with multiple buildings, underground parking, etc. One building alone is the 32 story condominium project which is going to cost between 750 million and 1 billion. The sad part is that even with 16 condominiums on each floor and selling them for a million dollars each, the Mormon church will only recover 480 million. The actual cost of this design build, accelerated construction will most likely come in at 15 billion dollars. Every day of delay increases the costs.
Second is the Mormon church hurting financially because of this project – YES!
In our meetings we are continually being asked how to reduce costs. For example, the buildings were to be constructed using French Marble (38 per square foot) then Chinese Granite (28 per square foot) and now a brick façade (8 – 10 per square foot)…. The main cause is attributed to TBM’s becoming upset and either reducing there tithing by using their net as the basis of 10%, or counting travel time to assignments (temple, canning, etc.), gas costs, Deseret Industries donation, etc. as payment in kind donations. And while it is true that the funds used to build the City Creek Center are not tithing, these other funds are now needed to make up the short fall caused by the reduction.
Another factor is the economy. The Mormon church conducts its financial transactions in US dollars. The US dollar has fallen in the world monetary markets. THIS IS HURTING THEM.
I suspect some of this is speculation on his part - assuming he is related to the project.
The question I have.. Do you think the church is having trouble swallowing this boondoggle in the making? Could this project really cost 10 or more BILLION?