The Gateway

Tried shoplifting, got yelled at, cried, got yelled at for crying, cried even more. Overall not a good experience.

As a city boy from Iowa I am accustomed to in-​door mall and shopping centers but I am just in love with the outdoors aspect of this mall. It can get really hot, but they have sprinklers hooked to wires above you that feel really good in the hot weather. They’ve got an excellent amount of stores to choose from and a great foodcourt with the right amount of restaurants to choose from. Hot Topic is my favorite store here. There are vending machines and directories around every corner making it the most desirable when you’re trying to find your way around. The only thing I don’t like is that its built around a street that cars can go through — I don’t like making maneuvers around cars to get to the store I want to go to.

This used to be a wonderful place, bustling with great shops and good people. Sometimes live music. It WAS a great place. But times have changed, the Gateway is dead. After the Gateway refused to allow bigger stores (Nordstroms in particular) to exist in their space they went else where. The Mormon church owns City Creek so they used their influence over the state to open a new mall (City Creek) just a few blocks away. All the most popular stores moved at this time making the Gateway a ghost of its short lived former self.
Another issue was the homeless shelter, which is across the street. It was to be moved but every proposed site played the «not in my backyard» game so the shelter stayed. Crime rates rose and shoppers shrank. Now the Gateway is all but a ghost town, empty shops or spaces devoid of store owners are now the predominant backdrop as one walks down the lonely streets. This place died a slow death and no one really noticed (mainly because they were all just a few blocks away at the City Creek Center).
Another issue was a well kept secret. The Gateway had its own kidnapping rate. The reasoning for this I can’t confirm. My guess would be the homeless shelter and all the illegals in the area but regardless the cause it was a serious issue rarely reported as to not further damage the already struggling effort to revitalize this part of downtown.
So as we say goodbye to the Gateway we wave and thank the Mormon Church for the re-​directed funds toward a new City Creek mall and invite the homeless and drug dealers /​criminal elements back to retake the place in the city that was theirs prior to this failed endeavor.
Rest in Peace Gateway. There was so little time to get to know you. All in all a recommendation, stay away. The former glory is utterly gone. Go to City Creek or Fashion Place. The point is, save the hassle and skip this attraction (though I must say, I’m sorry to have to say that. The Gateway «was» a great place for a time. But that time is gone).

I went here on a day when the temperature was 106 degrees at 7pm. It was very hot and I wished they had something to cool things up. It is an outdoor mall with none of the stores connected inside so there was no way I could go shopping without getting in and out on the heat.
The mall looks good and clean but was deserted except for some homeless people around which creeped me out.

I feel bad for The Gateway. Ever since City Creek has come in, this place gets no lovin. It’s pretty much a ghost town here. My boyfriend lives at the Northgate Apartments onsite here, so I’m around a lot, but it’s always empty. They have plenty of decent stores here and tons of great restaurants, but it still can’t hold a candle to City Creek down the street. It’s very tidy for an outdoor mall, and even though it is right by the homeless shelter, I’ve never seen anyone who was questionable lurking around. It’s a real shame how many stores are closing up here.

As a native Minnesotan, I give this place an extra star simply for the layout and gimmick of being mostly outdoors. Is that an escalator? Outdoors?! WOW! The water fountain /​play area is a great place to hang out in the summer. As for the shops, I could take them or leave them, too fancy for my tastes and I’ve never enjoyed mall shopping all that much. The food court is a little depressing; the freshness of the outdoor air dissipates and you’re transported to just another mall food court complete with stale air and the same tired old options.
I kind of like the parking situation here in that there’s a very select few spots at street level, and the rest are in a ramp. It almost makes you believe that you’re in some small town market square, not surrounded by miles of asphalt parking lot like other malls. On the flipside of that, the streets going through the mall become somewhat of a runway for strutting peacocks. Teenagers and gangster wannabes with jacked up soundsystems cruising by at ½mph, waiting for girls of questionable taste and judgement to come bounding up. I find this personally kind of annoying, but only in the way of crusty old bastards sitting on a porch complaining about the neighbor kids cutting across his lawn. I am trying to better appreciate the culture of transients here in SLC, and the mall is a great place to get a taste of this without visiting a substance abuse program. The Mall is right near what I think of as SLC’s skid row, so there’s tons of interesting characters around. Mall Security is in high evidence, thought I’ve never felt unsafe or even uncomfortable here, and in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked for money here like I get a lot of other places even further from downtown.
Overall an attractive setup and near some good downtown attractions like the Jazz Arena, The Depot and Discovery Gateway (Children’s Museum). It’s fun to hit the mall on a nice day, stroll around and people watch, maybe pack a towel and let the kids jam in the fountain for awhile.

Yes it’s true, they Gateway was build entirely too close to the homeless shelter. I don’t know what they were thinking.
But the occasional hobo has been giving the Gateway a bad rap. It’s a clean safe and fun mall with awesome stores.

Still a collection of very overpriced stores more concerned with appearance. Only store names have changed as some have migrated elsewhere. Still a nice place to walk around, but just not for too long. I get bored here easily.

It literally hurts my soul to give this place anything less than 5 stars but I’ve got to stop seeing this mall through the rose-​colored nostalgia glasses I have on. I frequented this place in high school nearly every weekend. It kept me warm when I was cold, offered me food when I hungered, allowed me to meet my favorite band in the Starbucks… we spent many years together in bliss and happiness. But allow me to take them off a moment and go into review. *TAKES OFF AWESOME ROSE COLORED, HEART SHAPED GLASSES*
This is an outdoor mall, sans retractable roof and heating system. They have multiple little campfire-​esque stations that would be nice to sit at and warm up, but they were all turned off. And it was like 30 degrees. I like the walking concept and the design of it, but in a state that is generally pretty cold most of the year, maybe it would be nice to turn the heater fires on? I found myself desiring to get back to my warm car the moment I walked out onto the street.
The mall has lost a good chunk of it’s stores to City Creek, or to oblivion. Z’Tejas (may it rest in peace) left and took a piece of my heart with it. The Apple Store, Forever 21… really, I just couldn’t find a place there that I wanted to go. Everything remaining was a chain store, or a seemingly struggling independent store.
Man… expressing all this just bums me out. I love the Gateway. I want to continue coming to the Gateway because I love it so much. But it’s not good anymore.
There is an abundance of panhandlers, which didn’t really bother me because it’s something I’m used to (and also work with in my career), but it definitely seems to deter people from shopping here and gives them another reason to head to City Creek or any mall.
I wish I could single-​handedly revive this mall and bring it back to it’s old glory that I spent so many hours at in my youth, but alas, I am merely a mortal and I do not have the powers to bring life and light back to the old glory that is The Gateway.
*sadly puts rose colored glasses back on*

Since the development of City Creek Center, unfortunately, the place has really gone down hill. I’ve worked at The Gateway for two years and it’s been sad to see so many retailers leave. (Gap, Old Navy, Apple, JMR, American Eagle, ZGallerie, Anthropologie, Forever21, Bohme, to name a few.) Almost all of which have migrated to the new City Creek Center. As a result of all this, the mall is beginning to feel rather barren. And, frankly, lame.
Perhaps the most unappealing aspect of the Gateway is the homeless population. Most shoppers do not want to be bothered and asked for money while shopping. As an employee, it can be quite frightening when you have the closing shift and you have to worry about walking to your car without getting mugged by one of the many sketchy individuals that roam the mall at night. Not only that, but some of them are dangerous. My store is robbed on practically a daily basis by homeless people that will (and have) pull a knife out when someone attempts to stop them.
Basically, the only thing that makes Gateway worthwhile anymore is the movie theatre, the chalk festival in the summer (amazing,) and some generic mall staples like Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works and Starbucks. Not to mention a few unique-​to-​Utah stores like Urban Outfitters and Abercrombie & Fitch.
Hopefully the Gateway will be able to manage some sort of turnaround. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice mall in a very lovely part of Salt Lake City; however, the mall’s weaknesses are beginning to outweigh what it has to offer.

Immense Mall commercial bourré de magasins et de restaurants, dans une architecture flambant neuve assez intéressante au premier coup d’oeil: l’essentiel est en plein air, dans des bâtiments en pierre beige, formant un vaste espace de promenade finalement plutôt joli.
Et puis on regarde les enseignes, on retrouve tous les noms qu’on connaît, on regarde les restaurants, et la déprime guette. Non, Gateway Mall, même si c’est tout neuf, même si on sent l’envie d’originalité, n’est pas une bonne recommandation pour le touriste français de passage.
Vite, à l’aéroport !