Stadium plan is Real as it gets
State sets aside $35M for Sandy soccer facility
By Amelia Nielson-Stowell and Lisa Riley Roche
Deseret Morning News
Real is here to stay — for real this time.
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Morning News
Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., Rep David Clark, Mayor Rocky Anderson, Sen. Sheldon Killpack and Mayor Tom Dolan hold up Real Salt Lake soccer jerseys during a press conference at the Capitol Thursday.
Now that lawmakers agreed Thursday to set aside $35 million to keep Real Salt Lake from leaving Utah for St. Louis, work will begin in earnest to finish an agreement between the state, Sandy City and the team.
Representatives of those three entities are already hammering out the interlocal agreement that will spell out everything the team is getting to stay in Utah — and everything the team has to do in return. The agreement could be done within a few weeks.
An hour-and-a-half after the bill passed the House, 48-24, Thursday, Real Salt Lake team officials and players gathered on the Capitol plaza with state lawmakers, Sandy and Salt Lake City leaders and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who says he will sign the measure as soon as it reaches his desk. Donning personalized soccer jerseys and Real scarves, the group cheered.
"Soccer is here to stay," Huntsman said. "With a very solid foundation to move forward, Major League Soccer can now truly become the great unifier, bringing together our diverse cultures across multiple generations."
The governor championed the deal after Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon turned it down last week as too risky, and put plenty of pressure on lawmakers to pass the needed legislation. Huntsman even appeared before both the Democratic and Republican House caucuses just before Thursday's vote.
Team owner Dave Checketts has been entertaining offers from other cities to buy the team and build a soccer-specific stadium. St. Louis pitched the most lucrative deal, but Checketts wanted the stadium at his former stomping grounds.
"What an incredible journey this has been. I've always loved my hometown, and it has never let me down. But the last couple weeks have been very tough," he said, calling the process "draining."
"A week ago Monday, I truly thought soccer was dead and the project was dead," he added. "It was clear at that time that it was time to move on. But what has transpired since couldn't have been scripted."
Salt Lake County is no longer part of the negotiations. Corroon, a Real season ticket holder, was not invited to the celebration. He released a statement that said he plans to support the partnership between the team, state and Sandy.
"I made a decision based on a great deal of information and months of analysis, meetings and hearing; the Legislature has now made their decision as well," it read.
The deal's details
The new agreement with the state may end up looking very similar to the agreement the county originally reached with the team.
But instead of the county setting aside hotel-room taxes for the project, those tax revenues, under the legislation passed by the House Thursday, will go to the Governor's Office of Economic Development.
HB38 allows the state to collect $35 million of Salt Lake County's hotel-tax revenue for the next 20 years to be used for the stadium site. That money will be used to build a $20 million parking garage that's been in the works since 2005 in Sandy and $15 million worth of adjacent land where the stadium will be built.
"It will be kind of a pass through," Jason Perry, the economic development office's executive director, said. "As part of that we'll have some oversight." He said even before the bill was passed, there have been meetings on the agreement.
"Over the last several days, we started talking about some of the details of the plan," Perry said, including a guarantee that the team will stay. The county's agreement mandated Real remain for 30 years or pay a $10 million fine.
"All those promises, that included, are the details we are being charged right now to make sure are part of the agreement and that the state's interests are covered through every step of the negotiations," he said.
A rendering shows planned $110 million Real stadium in Sandy.
A question-and-answer sheet on team letterhead was circulated among lawmakers before Thursday's vote, dealing with some of the other promises already made that will go into the new agreement.
The team still pledges to kick in $7.5 million toward a youth sports complex in northwest Salt Lake City, establish an elite soccer academy, give away 500 tickets per home game to charity and provide signs and other promotional materials to state and local governments.
It's Sandy's ball now
Sandy City plans to discuss terms of the interlocal agreement and a development agreement during a Tuesday council meeting. And the Sandy Redevelopment Agency board will begin the process of creating a community development area around the stadium, to redirect $10 million in property taxes for phase one of the $110 million stadium. That CDA dollar amount could bump up to $15 million if Real expands to phase two of the stadium project that includes a hotel and broadcast studio.
"We're pleased to finally have a chance to get in the game. We've been sitting on the sidelines," said Sandy Councilman Steve Fairbanks.
Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan, who has been working on a stadium deal with Real for almost two years, said he was relieved and exhausted, but also said Sandy is far from being finished.
"It really begins now for us. We have a lot of details to put together and a lot of guarantees and assurances to put together," he said.
Real must also get construction plans approved through the council and planning and zoning department before building starts. And the team may have to re-evaluate their stadium completion date of July 2008, said team CEO Dean Howes. The team also needs to find a permanent practice facility.
Deseret Morning News graphic
Even St. Louis, the team that aimed to buy Real and give it a permanent home near the Illinois metropolis, is outlining its next move.
Jeff Cooper, managing partner of Simmons Cooper, who has been trying to buy the team and put it in St. Louis, said Thursday that although he's disappointed Real won't call St. Louis home, he's working on getting a franchise team for the city.
"We were never here to steal a team or run off with anyone's soccer team, but when Sports Capital Partners (Checketts' company) and Real Salt Lake was left with no other option but to move, we thought St. Louis was the best option," he said. "But this is the best outcome for Real Salt Lake and for soccer."
St. Louis jumped in the race to win a Major League Soccer team shortly after Corroon denied stadium funding. Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson also resurrected his back-up plan to put the stadium at the Utah State Fairpark, which was shot down as a stadium site in 2005.
Despite the team not choosing to build the stadium in Utah's capital city, Anderson said an MLS team in the state will make Utah a "world-class community"
"Well, whatever anyone thinks of the process, the end result is a Major League Soccer team in this community, which is absolutely fantastic," he said.
Decision not unanimous
Over a dozen Real team players came in suits to the team's Thursday afternoon press conference and were thrilled over the decision to stay put in Utah.
"My family and I wanted to stay here in Salt Lake City. We want to make our future here in Utah," said team captain Jason Kreis, whose wife and two boys live in Salt Lake City with him. "It's been a big talking point among the players. Now we can focus on our pre-season."
Deseret Morning News graphic
Utah first lady Mary Kaye Huntsman has recruited several members of the soccer team to participate in her "Power in You" program aimed at helping build self-esteem in Utah youth. And several Real players have spent time at the Governor's Mansion as friends of the Huntsmans' oldest daughters.
Her influence on the governor's decision to take over the effort to seal a deal with Real was mentioned by Checketts, who said the team would not be here without her.
Gov. Huntsman said soccer is "the sport of 21st-century America and a new generation. What the world knows as the beautiful game will now know it has a permanent home in the beautiful state of Utah."
House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, an early supporter of sending soccer to Sandy, credited Huntsman with getting the deal done. "It was dead until the governor said he was going to weigh in," Curtis said.
The speaker, who said he first heard the proposal some 21 months ago, praised lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for deciding "it was the right thing. Significant decisions like this always involve a lot of controversy."
Some lawmakers were less enthusiastic about the state getting involved in the deal. "You don't want to chase things that are on the edge," Senate Majority Whip Dan Eastman, R-Bountiful, said. "It's not something I would have gone out on a limb for."
Still, Eastman said, the state ended up with a better deal from Real. And there's little doubt there was also some dealing between the governor and lawmakers, and the House and the Senate, over support for the bill.
"There were absolutely no deals," Eastman said with a smile. "But we might have mentioned some things we'd like the House to pay a little more attention to, to study a little harder."
During the bill's debate in the House Thursday (it passed the Senate Tuesday), others voiced similar concerns.
"I've come to the conclusion myself that this is worthy of our support, but it comes with a lot of trepidation because our public has not been with us," House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, said. He added of the e-mails he's received from constituents have been 15 to one against the funding deal.
Rep. Neil Hansen, D-Ogden, said using hotel room taxes paid by visitors sends the wrong message about the state's tourism industry.
"What are we telling those travelers? Thank you for visiting us, thank you for letting us gouge you and now we're going to build a soccer stadium with your money," he said. "If this is such a great idea, why aren't the banks involved in this? Why do they have to come to the taxpayers to help this out?"
Others still think the stadium will bring unprecedented benefits to the state — and Sandy.
"When we build a $110 million dollar stadium on that facility, the school district will receive 54 percent of the levy property tax," said Rep. Todd Kiser, R-Sandy, who said figures from Sandy City Council indicate that the stadium will garner $20 million in taxes for the local school district over the next 25 years just with the first phase of stadium construction.
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or maybe this one 
Looking at the Tribune Healine I guess Checketts decision is just a formality.
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