WEST VALLEY CITY — Wholesale changes are coming to Valley Fair Mall beginning Friday, when Costco opens its doors.
The wholesale membership retailer will open for business following a 7:30 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony at the store, located at 3747 S. 2700 West.
West Valley City spokesman Aaron Crim said Costco is the first step in revitalizing shopping at Valley Fair, which is being redeveloped from a traditional indoor mall to an outdoor shopping plaza.
"Costco technically is a tenant of the mall," Crim said. "It's been the catalyst for further development of the mall. Now that Costco is opening, we're going to start seeing progress on the mall pretty quickly."
The West Valley location becomes Utah's ninth Costco and brings about 200 new jobs to the area, said Annette Scott, a Costco marketing representative.
Developers are planning to break ground on the Valley Fair project in spring 2008, with November 2008 as the target date for completion of its first phase. All phases of the project are scheduled to be complete by 2010.
Meanwhile, developers will be working to finalize contracts with mall tenants and design plans for the shopping center.
"Getting Costco in was the first step," said Greg Helm, co-owner of Satterfield Helm Management Inc. "That was a very key part to the project. Costco does excellent business and works well with malls."
J.C. Penney, Macy's and Mervyns will remain as anchor stores of the mall, Helm said. J.C. Penney will get a more modern look as the West Valley location becomes one of the retailer's prototype stores, he said.
Other tenants that have committed to Valley Fair Mall or are in the process of signing letters of intent include Ross Dress for Less, Famous Footwear, Olive Garden, Old Navy, T.G.I. Fridays, Panda Express, T-Mobile, FedEx Kinko's, Wells Fargo and Beans and Brews, Helm said.
The project originally called for 200 to 250 housing units above the stores, as well as an underground parking lot, but developers recently nixed those plans because of time and cost factors.
The housing element would have pushed the project's completion date back by about 18 months, the developers said, and ongoing construction could have a negative impact on mall business.
Also, a high water table in the area would have made the underground parking lot more costly than anticipated, developers said.
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