The Salt Lake City council approved rezoning last night for a 95-acre site that could include an MLB stadium, which “historic opportunity” and “create a place for Utah’s families to gather and thrive” and blah blah blah, is anyone actually proposing who would pay for this thing?
The answer appears to be no, or at least no more than the last time this was discussed back in March, at which time the state legislature approved kicking back sales and property taxes from a 200-acre “entertainment district” around the stadium to help pay for construction. At the time, the bill’s sponsors indicated that it would take $900 million to pay for half the cost of a $1.8 billion stadium, and that it would take more than just the tax kickbacks, without specifying how much more or where the more would come from. There had previously been talk of using hotel taxes as well, but that was stripped by the legislature at the last minute and not replaced.
Plus, of course, Salt Lake City doesn’t have an MLB team, though presumably someone there could put in for an expansion franchise as soon as the league decides to open itself up for expansion, which was supposed to happen as soon as the Tampa Bay Rays and Athletics situations are resolved, so, yeah, maybe don’t hold your breath there. At least it does have renderings — the best part is how there are no turnstiles between the ballpark and the adjacent river, so either fans will enjoy free in-game kayaking or kayakers will get free admission to the games, two thumbs up for both ideas.
Maybe if Salt Lake City hadn’t thrown a billion dollars of sales tax money down a black hole renovation of the Delta Center and demolition of half of the Salt Palace to make room for an “entertainment district” that already exists on the other side of the Delta Center called the Gateway, there would be funding available for the baseball stadium. The Utah Hockey club or whatever and whenever Ryan Smith decides to come up with a name stinks, and his Jazz have held down the Western Conference cellar all season. Ryan Smith reminds me of Michael McCaskey, who knew nothing about being an owner, and happened to fall into ownership because 8 billion dollars fell into his lap or his uncle died of a heart attack in 1979. Chicago lost a chance for the sports dynasty Papa Bear built and Salt Lake City can sit back and watch a billion dollars of sales taxes go down a black hole over the next 30 years while dreaming of Major League Baseball.
Manfredo is on the record saying he expects “$2+ billion” for an expansion team.
Who in their right mind would pay that and then $900 million in construction costs for a team in SLC that’s easily one of the MLBs smallest markets, with very little local tv revenue and the commish’s office being silent regarding the salaries the real teams can afford? You’d have to be a nutcase to do it.
For upfront costs of $2.9 billion you could own a European soccer club that’s competing in the UEFA champions league.
Who would pay $1,300,000,000 for a hockey team that lost over a billion dollars in 28 years, rip up a perfectly good NBA arena for another billion? Ryan Smith pledged to spend $3 billion developing 10 acres in Salt Lake City? That kind of money only make sense around Park Avenue and 51st Street.
The thing is that the Utah Hockey team will probably never be worth significantly less then what Smith bought it for, the NHL has artificially inflated its value for the betterment of the league and he’s already playing with house money considering what he bought the Jazz for vs what it’s worth now.
If he wants to be SLC’s sleaziest real estate developer- that’s not necessarily the worst outcome for pro sports in Utah.
The only reason why SEG won’t take a bath on buying UHC is because it gave them development rights to prime real estate in downtown and they got a $900 million handout from the state and city. Otherwise it’d be Coyotes 2.0
There’s that $2 billion figure again. The judicially-sanctioned cartel is trying to set a new price floor…
Pavlov should have studied sports fans and elected officials… the behaviour is the same and you don’t feel bad when you have to put them down at the end of the study.
Alexander Holler says:
December 11, 2024 at 4:37 pm
“Manfredo is on the record saying he expects “$2+ billion” for an expansion team.”
I don’t know if you intentionally combined the name of the worst MLB commissioner of my lifetime with that of cinema’s best known weak, stupid, and easy to manipulate characters or if your device autocorrected. It’s the former, bravo my good man.
It would appear this stadium would set record for stupid-tall light standards.
Love the lit ferris wheel, but I want balloons and birds and bird-shaped balloons!
All of this is great but what balloon shaped birds?
And ballon-shaped birds!
Salt Lake is never going to get a MLB, please keep dreaming!
The ballpark is part of a much larger redevelopment of the west side, where they’ll be decommissioning old power plants and converting the land into a bunch of the usual “mixed-development” faire. It also includes redeveloping the state fairgrounds (which, to be fair, it needs but not at this price tag) and cleaning up the Jordan River. That’s why the Fairpark Commission was created, because that area is gonna get gentrified no matter what. The zoning rights Larry H Miller Enterprises scored in this deal are staggering and give them wide latitude to build whatever they want without much in guaranteeing affordable housing.
Now, is this deal a huge sop to Rocky Mountain Power, the main utility in the state that owns the land (and also recently tried to pass along a 35+% rate hike until outcry got too fierce) and LHM? Yes. Have they said what will happen if a ballpark isn’t put there? No. Will this screw over the predominantly Latino and Polynesian neighborhoods of Rose Park and Glendale? Most likely. But by all accounts, shovels will be in the ground for this project with or without an MLB team.