Mormons and Prop 8

I have been thinking through what to do about the Mormon actions against same-sex marriage rights. Suggestions for boycotting Utah, Sundance, or Mormon business are bad ideas. That doesn’t mean don’t act.

The Mormon Church came after our rights, and if we don’t stop them, they will be back again and again.

We need a highly targeted action that lets them know the price of their hate. Mormons donated nearly $20 million for Prop 8. Imagine the value to our campaign if we could cut their contributions in half next time by making clear the ultimate cost of these actions.

The Answer: Pressure all tenants to leave the new Mormon mega-mall in the center of Salt Lake City, starting with Macy’s and Nordstrom

The Mormon Church is building a new mega-mall that spans the center of Salt Lake City. The City Creek Center is:

• 20 acres, over three large blocks – all owned by the Mormon Church
• $2 billion in investment –  all Mormon Church money
• Mega-mall and office towers - all owned by the Mormon Church
• In the absolute center of the city, next to their temple and headquarters
• Currently under construction, completion scheduled for 2012
• ALL PROFITS from this real estate project go straight to the Mormon Church

This project is designed to rebuild the area around the Temple after decades of poor urban planning and the continuing destruction of historic buildings. It is an essential part of the church’s control over Salt Lake City’s center. 

>> No company that respects the LGBT community will promote the profits of this highly politicized church and its anti-gay and anti-civil rights actions!

Stop Major Retail Anchors

• Nordstrom is planning to occupy a two-story, 124,000 square foot space
• Macy’s  is planning to occupy a three-story store of 150,000 square feet

>> These popular stores should NOT ANCHOR this Mormon Church project.  

Stop Specialty Retailers

• NO “mid-sized anchor”. Recent speculation includes Crate & Barrel or Borders Books and Music,
• NO specialty stores. The mall has about 300,000 square feet of specialty retail space to fill. No Gap, Ann Taylor, Brookstone, FootLocker, Hallmark, Mrs Fields, Starbucks… no chain stores that value their national business.

>> Responsible stores do NOT RENT in this Mormon Church mall.  

Stop Office Tenants

• NO office tenants in Mormon Church owned office towers.
• No peace studies center. The project envisions a “conflict resolution and peace studies center” built on Salt Lake City’s Olympic legacy. Do not give let this hate-based church claim such center!

>> No corporation that values the business of the LGBT community and our friends will be a commercial tenant of the office towers. 

Information on the City Creek Center at Wikipedia, the official project site, and the mall leasing company’s site complete with artists renderings.

Special thanks to sandiegoblues at DailyKos for calling out this action. 

Why Target Macy’s and Nordstrom

• This project, central to the Mormon Church’s plans for Salt Lake City, is anchored by Macy’s and Nordstrom, making them central to the project’s success.
• These companies value our business - of all the LGBT people in America, and all of our supporters – more than the income from one of their multiple Salt Lake City stores.
• In Times For The Holidays! This is the peak time to pressure retailers. Act now. These prominent stores are most sensitive to action RIGHT NOW.
• The larger economy is in trouble, no retailer wants more problems.
• There are many other locations in Salt Lake City, these companies don’t need to lose their market.
• This is next to the Mormon Temple, other parts of the city can thrive (what fun parts there are in Salt Lake City are away from the Temple, by Mormon design).
• There are other places for us to shop. We don’t need to give our money to those who do not stand up for us.
• This is not our bigotry. This is us pushing back against the bully that came after us. We must stand up so they never do this again.
• We love Macy’s and Nordstrom and want their success, just not at the cost of our rights.

Join Up!

Support this action to Stop Mormon H8 by joining our Facebook group: Stop Mormon Church Profits: Macy’s and Nordstrom Out!

Macy’s

Note that we have no fight with Macy’s. Macy’s is a responsible company with a 100% HRC rating. The problem is Macy’s serving as anchor tenant of the Mormon Church owned City Creek Center.

Contact Macy’s

Macy’s, Inc. Corporate Communications 
Headquarters: Cincinnati, OH and New York, NY 
Includes all corporate-related questions and issues (involving areas such as financial performance, strategic direction, corporate decisions, public policy, real estate, corporate philanthropy and employee volunteerism, diversity, credit, systems, logistics and overall merchandising issues)

Jim Sluzewski 
513-579-7764 
jim.sluzewski@macys.com

Let me know if this information is not correct.

Correspondence with Macy’s

Email received from Macy’s on 12/3/2008

Dear Mr. Grant:

Thank you for your email expressing concerns about Macy’s locating in the City Creek Center project being developed in Salt Lake City. As you know, Macy’s is scheduled to re-open in 2012 as part of an agreement reached nearly two years ago that included closing and razing our previous store in downtown Salt Lake City.

Please understand that Macy’s commitment to diversity and to the GLBT community is unwavering.  Our history is rooted in inclusiveness, a core principle of Macy’s.

We are one of the most supportive companies in the country to our GLBT employees, including many members of senior management, as well as, vendors and customers.  Our annual support of Pride Week in cities across the country, our production of the Passport fashion events on the West Coast that have raised $27 million since its inception was expanded this year to also include a special program on NBC, and a fashion show with segments from the Passport events simulcast into 27 movie theatres in select cities nationwide, funding to special projects like Bryan’s House in Dallas and others.  The Human Rights Campaign has recognized Macy’s with the maximum rating for our support.  We are one of a few Fortune 100 companies that includes gender identity in our company non-discrimination policy.  Macy’s is also one of the first retailing companies to offer domestic partner benefits.

We plan to continue to support the GLBT community when we open the new store in Salt Lake City and beyond.

I do hope you will consider our continuing commitment to the GLBT community in making your decision about shopping in our stores.  We value your business.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and allowing us to share ours.  We hope to serve you in the future. — Jim

Jim Sluzewski
VP, Corporate Communications & External Affairs
Macy’s, Inc.

Email sent to Macy’s on 12/18/2008 

Dear Jim,

I am grateful for Macy’s corporate responsibility, including your 100% HRC rating. Thank you, and keep up the good work.

The issue is your serving as the anchor store for the Mormon Church’s City Creek Center, as the church has become the most aggressively anti-LGBT rights organization in America. Macy’s should not serve as the flagship for this project, and no friend of the LGBT community would be a tenant there.

- Preston

Nordstrom

Note that we have no fight with Nordstrom. Nordstrom is a responsible company with a 100% HRC rating. The problem is Nordstrom serving as anchor tenant of the Mormon Church owned City Creek Center.

Contact Nordstrom

You can contact Nordstrom through:

Brooke White
VP, Corporate Communications
1617 6th Avenue, Suite 700, Seattle, WA 98117
Phone: 206-373-3030
Fax: 206-373-3039
Email: Brooke.White@nordstrom.com 

Correspondence with Nordstrom

Email received from Nordstrom on 12/3/2008

Dear Preston,

Thank you for your email voicing your concerns about Nordstrom being part of the City Creek Center in downtown Salt Lake City. I am not sure if you are aware but we have been serving customers in Utah since 1980, when we originally opened a store at the old Crossroads Plaza mall in Salt Lake. After 27 years of doing business there, we closed our downtown store in 2007 as part of the demolition and rebuilding of the newly named City Creek Center on the same site. You are right, we do plan to re-open in Salt Lake in 2012. We also operate a store in Murray (which we opened in 1981), a store in Orem and a Nordstrom Rack in Salt Lake.

I noticed on your website that it says all profits from the project with go directly to the Mormon Church. You may be happy to know that Nordstrom will not be passing on any of its profit to either the Church or The Taubman Company, the developer of City Creek Center. In fact, our deal will be with The Taubman Company and not the Church. We will pay rent to The Taubman Company, the builder and operator of the shopping center portion of City Creek Center.

Though the Mormon Church has a large presence in Utah, we view our business there as serving everyone in the local communities, just as we do in all communities. It’s also important for you to know that Nordstrom is committed to recruiting, hiring and promoting qualified people of all backgrounds, regardless of sexual orientation. In fact, we were one of the early companies to expand our anti-discrimination statement to go beyond Title VII to include sexual orientation more than a decade ago. We also want to serve customers of all backgrounds, respecting each and every one of our customers. As part of our commitment to supporting the diverse communities and customers we serve, we make contributions to a wide variety to organizations, including gay and lesbian organizations such as GLAAD, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, San Diego Human Dignity Foundation and National Coalition of Lesbian Rights and we will continue to do so.

We certainly hope you can consider these facts when making your choice to shop at Nordstrom. We do value your business – we would be sorry to lose you as a customer. Thank you again for writing to us. We appreciate being given the opportunity to share our thoughts with you.

Sincerely,

Brooke White
VP, Corporate Communications
Nordstrom

Email sent to Nordstrom on 12/3/2008

Brooke,

I do know your history in Utah, and hope that Nordstrom will continue to prosper there, just not at the cost of my civil rights.

I appreciate Nordstrom’s strong stand for civil rights in the past, and I thank you. For that reason I am sure that you, like most Americans, were saddened as the Mormon Church transformed into America’s leading anti-gay, anti-civil rights organization, pressuring its members into funding nearly 80% of the private money and 80-90% of the volunteering for Prop 8.

I am concerned that your letter does not accurately represent the City Creek Center in Salt Lake City’s downtown:

• Nordstrom is to be the premier anchor store. While your previous store was in the privately owned Crossroads Mall, that property is now owned by Property Reserve, Inc, the for-profit real estate arm of the Mormon Church, which tore down Crossroads to build City Creek Center. The core of the City Creek Center offices and housing is a shopping mall spanning multiple blocks, to be managed by the Taubman Corporation. So behind the corporate layers your landlord is: the Mormon Church.
• I said “All profits go straight to the Mormon Church.” I did not mean to imply that Nordstrom’s profits went to the church, and have changed the wording accordingly. To restate more clearly: All of City Creek Center’s profits, including the part of your lease payments left after Taubman takes its percentage for operations management, goes to the church’s for-profit real estate arm. The ultimate profits go to: the Mormon Church.

Please let me know if this information is incorrect.

Nordstrom is the jewel in the crown of this Mormon Church project. I hope you join me, and all responsible corporations, in questioning involvement in this Mormon development project, when you have so many gay and lesbian employees and customers.

May I suggest opening your Utah flagship store in another Utah mall? Maybe The Gateway, a few blocks away. They are a private company, and to my knowledge, removing civil rights from LGBT people is not one of their primary goals.

- Preston

Email received from Nordstrom on 12/5/2008

Dear Preston,

Thanks for your thoughtful follow up. I hope it might be helpful to provide you with information about Crossroads Plaza/City Creek Center as we know it.

You are correct that Crossroads Plaza Mall was privately owned for many years. However, the land underneath the mall was always owned by Property Reserved Inc. (PRI) or the Mormon Church and was leased to the mall owners. Crossroads Plaza Mall was owned by Foulger Pratt Companies until 2003 when Foulger Pratt sold the mall to PRI. Nordstrom then became the tenant of PRI until we closed our doors in January 2007. PRI was our landlord for 4 years. In regard to our current involvement with City Creek Center, The Taubman Company will own and operate the shopping center portion.

As to opening in another Salt Lake City mall, we did an exhaustive search for another site for many years – while we were still a tenant at Crossroads and it was slowly falling apart with increasing vacancies. Crossroads had as high as 70% vacancy at one point. For any mall, that spells the end if customers simply aren’t visiting anymore. You might remember that we wanted to go to The Gateway. In March 2003, we signed a letter of intent with The Boyer Company to open a new store at The Gateway. However, that mall had a zoning ordinance which prohibited a retailer of our size opening there. We worked with the Salt Lake City Council to see if the zoning ordinance could be lifted to allow Nordstrom to build there but unfortunately in October of 2003, the Council voted against lifting it. At that time, we announced our intention to leave Salt Lake as there was no suitable site for a Nordstrom store. From the feedback we received then, it seemed important to the entire city that we maintain a presence in downtown, continuing to contribute to the tax base of the city and employing nearly 200 people in our old store, instead of consolidating our presence in our Murray store. In 2004, PRI partnered with The Taubman Company to come up with a new design for a new mall and it penciled out for us to stay

Finally, we think the best thing we can do to support the LGBT community and our LGBT employees is to continue to be a good employer and remain supportive of the various charities that we partner with. I also meant to share yesterday that we offer domestic partner benefits and have for many years.

I recognize that this isn’t the response you were hoping for and I am sorry to disappoint you. Again, we value your patronage over the years and respect your decision for not continuing to shop with us. Perhaps at some point in the future, we will be able to earn your business again.

Sincerely,

Brooke White
VP, Corporate Communications
Nordstrom

Email sent to Nordstrom on 12/3/2008

I am sorry the Gateway mall suggestion doesn’t work. My concern that you are the flagship for this Mormon Church development, given their clear anti-LGBT agenda and actions, remains.

- Preston
 

Macy’s and Nordstrom out of the Mormon City Creek Center NOW!

The Mormon Church must never come after our rights again.

Stop Mormon Bigotry. Stop Mormon Bullying. Stop Mormon Profits.