Where there used to be an American Eagle Outfitters, a Speedo store, Mervyn's, Victoria's Secret and a nail salon in Crossroads Plaza, dark storefronts and white-paneled walls sit amid cheery signs promising change.

Crossroads Plaza remains mostly vacant except for Nordstrom and a handful of stores on the first floor.

The change, though, hasn't come yet, after years of whispers and rumors about how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will handle the massive redevelopment of its downtown malls and surrounding properties.

Much of the complexity comes from having to move tenants from long-held leases. One holdout is Utah Woolen Mills, which has 63 years left on a 90-year lease. Company president Bart Stringham doesn't want to give up the store's private parking and prime storefront facing Temple Square, which draws about 5 million people a year.

"We're dealing with the church, and they have a lot of power, a lot of say, a lot of money," Stringham said. "The holdup is that maybe we've been expected to just roll over and play dead and do what they will."

It's not every metropolitan downtown that features its very own ghost town, but Salt Lake City does. It's called the Crossroads Plaza, a k a the Ghost Mall.

Admission is free and directions are simple. Just walk 2 1/2 blocks due east of the bustling, thriving Gateway development and enter through the doors with the '80s style "CP" stenciled on the glass.

Just like that you're into Salt Lake's very own mall-turned-mausoleum.

What was once a bustling, thriving shopping mecca with 140 stores and restaurants and people fighting over parking places now has exactly 15 places still in business, and 10 of those are in the basement.

On the main level, there's one bank, one department store, one bookstore and two dress shops, both of which are, as we speak, holding 50 percent going-out-of-business sales.

Beyond that, there's so much empty space it reminds you of Wyoming. Downtown Ophir is busier. They could hold a Formula One race in the Crossroads Plaza and no one would get hurt.

As you enter Crossroads Plaza, a sign suggests you leave.

Not a great first impression. But anymore, this Salt Lake City shopping center isn't out to dazzle. More mausoleum than mall, just three stores remain open where 160 once thrived.

Oddly, this is a sign of progress: The windows at the closed Mervyn's are papered in black. The escalator at the entrance is walled off. The shuttered fourth floor is home to garbage pails that catch water from the leaking roof. The food court is starved of eateries.

Plants outnumber shoppers.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns the ghost town, along with the comparatively bustling ZCMI Center across Main Street. The church, with its headquarters to the north, bought a struggling Crossroads in 2003 to protect its nearby Temple Square from blight.

The LDS Church declined to respond to specific questions about its plans, instead saying tenant negotiations are ongoing.

"There will be some that are musically choreographed," Gibbons said, "and some features never implemented before."

City Creek Reserve officials declined to reveal more, saying they didn't want to spoil the unveiling in 2012 by Wet Design.

"I'll give you the teaser that there's some fire involved, and it will be quite dramatic," [City Creek Reserve President Mark] Gibbons said."

Dubai. Salt Lake City. Northeast Phoenix.

City Creek Center, a 25-acre project planned in Salt Lake City, also has plans for a retractable roof. Salt Lake's Deseret News reported earlier this year that the cost of the roof could reach $1.5 billion.

The tour offered the first peek at a proposed retractable roof over a portion of the open-air mall, expected to be utilized during extreme weather. The elongated dome over one portion of the project's galleria space divides at its center and retracts out of view.

Bill Williams, CCRI's director of architecture and engineering, said the retractable roof is being designed by the engineers behind the mechanized roof at Safeco Field in Seattle, home of Major League Baseball's Mariners.