Sure, Utah is set to give Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith $900 million on an upgraded arena for whatever the Arizona Coyotes eventually get renamed following their move to Salt Lake City, and there’s been talk of another $900 million for an MLB stadium for some hypothetical future team, though much of the baseball money remains TBD. But surely the nation’s 29th-largest media market has room for some more sports venues to throw taxpayer cash at, right?
Black Desert Resort in Ivins plans to build an arena that potentially could host a minor league hockey team, NBA preseason games, the Utah Jazz’s G League team, concerts and other events. Patrick Manning, the resort’s managing partner, told The Salt Lake Tribune this week that a bill has been written for the next legislative session, asking the state to help fund the project, which could cost up to $2 billion.
It’s not quite a $2 billion minor-league arena — bill sponsor State Sen. Jerry Stevenson said “we may have to pare it way back and make it not a hotel,” which I guess means right now it’s also a hotel? — and in fact right now no actual legislation has been introduced. But Stevenson says the resort, which hasn’t even opened yet, plans on asking to fund the project with a Public Infrastructure District, which is basically Utah’s version of a TIF, kicking back taxes in an area around the venue to help pay off construction bonds.
How much tax money would get kicked back depends on how big you draw the district, so it’s anyone’s guess what the subsidy ask would be. Stevenson would seem to be in a good position to guess, as the guy introducing the legislation, but apparently no:
“My gosh, $2 billion. I don’t know what they are looking for,” Stevenson told The Tribune.
Try to find out before you sponsor the bill, maybe? Just a thought.
A minor league arena for basketball and hockey, in a small city that has major league basketball and hockey? No wonder private investors aren’t jumping to get in on this. This is what happens when the world finds out that you’re not good with money.
In fairness, this is in southwest Utah and 300+ miles away from SLC. Still a stupid idea, but not even our legislature is dumb enough to fund a third major arena in Salt Lake County behind the Delta and Maverick Centers…at least I hope.
Dumbo Cox is that stupid, hope that write in campaign works or opens a passage for a Democrat governor to slip in. In Utah???
Ivins is a tiny bedroom community down in Washington County. This arena wouldn’t even be in St. George, which is the regional population center for southwestern Utah and actually off Interstate 15. (And is also home to Burns Arena, which hosts Utah Tech basketball and as far as I know hasn’t been facing any overflow demand for events). Also, good luck trying to be a “world-class” live entertainment venue when folks can go to Mesquite, Nevada only 40 miles away where they are allowed to gamble, smoke weed, and drink without the hassle of Utah’s stupid liquor laws. I don’t know how a PID would cover this given the resort’s remote location and adjacency to the Paiute reservation. Unless they stretch it out to St. George, which I’m sure would go over well with the owners of the other major golf resorts in the region, like Sand Hollow.
Oh, and the Black Sands Resort project has been a massive source of controversy in Southern Utah due to its water consumption (building a huge golf resort in the desert will do that), traffic, and noise and light issues. So sure, why not throw an ice rink in there as well!
Way off I-15, according to Google maps it’s 16 minutes from I-15.
So it’s only 25 minutes further to Mesquite or an hour and a half further to the MSG Sphere, Tmobile arena, Allegiant Stadium etc.
Maybe the Utah team needs a fun acronym. Like:
Potentially
Utah
Coyotes
Kiss off
Erstwhile (name)
Rebrand
Someday
Puckers
I could see MLB going there, if either the Vegas deal falls apart or MLB decides to expand by more than 2 teams. I don’t think Utah could support an NFL team because of the games being on Sundays and Mormons beleiving thats a day for rest and family. Some don’t even go shopping because it would require others to work. I remember Larry Miller not attending Jazz home games on Sundays. Obviously MLB can’t really avoid it but that’s only a fraction of the home slate (I wouldn’t be surprised if they did double headers on some Saturdays to limit Sunday baseball games)
Salt Lake County is majority non-LDS these days, and even then only a minority of its Mormons are active and observe the Sabbath restrictions. The really devout folks all think SLC is Sodom and have fled to Utah County. The faith in general has been declining in numbers in recent years, although the Church has been loath to admit that. The Jazz haven’t had problems selling out Sunday games for years and I don’t think an MLB team would either.
Beyond ripping out the north end of the Delta Center to make room for a hockey rink, or some such nonsense, and shoehorning a parking garage above the Delta Center loading docks, I don’t see where else the nearly billion dollars is going. A plaza with a 300 foot wide overhang that says Utah? Tearing down the west end of the Salt Palace and then burying the convention space 50 feet underground? All this is so transformational for all of Salt Lake City that a sales tax increase is justified? Transformational for the hundreds, maybe thousands of homeless and drug addicts camped along the Jordan River and surrounding neighborhoods? The SLC City Council held its meeting on the west side last night as a show of “We care so much about the west side”. They even provided a free Mexican taco dinner for west side residents. Next week it will be back to business as usual raising the sales tax to give Ryan Smith his billion dollar welfare check while the homeless continue to deficate on resident’s lawns. The Utah Legislature passed a terrible bill forcing Salt Lake City to subsidies Ryan Smith’s dream of being a sports mogul, and it looks like Salt Lake City is drinking the Kool Aid.
I didn’t realize that the non-LDS outnumber the LDS. I just remember Smith having church people at the press conference talking about the importance