(by Brady Snyder desnews.com 1-8-05)
Some Salt Lake City leaders, including Mayor Rocky Anderson, have said they would be willing to purchase land where Real Salt Lake could build a new soccer stadium. Now they have a price tag — some $15.5 million.
That figure is the assessed 2004 property value of the 10-acre block Salt Lake City hopes Real Salt Lake will choose to build its stadium. The site is between 600 and 700 South and Main and West Temple streets. The competition is from Murray, which has pitched its own site in the Fireclay district near 4500 South and I-15.
Real Salt Lake spokesman Josh Ewing said the team expects to have public meetings in both cities this month before deciding on a site.
Salt Lake City's block is currently owned by five different groups, the largest being billionaire Earl Holding's Sinclair Oil Corp., which owns roughly three-quarters of the 10-acre area.
All but one of the property owners have been contacted about selling their land, Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency executive director Dave Oka said.
Sinclair Vice President Clint Ensign said a land sale is "something that we're looking into right now."
The $15.5 million the land is worth would be in addition to the $30 million Real Salt Lake wants Salt Lake County taxpayers to bond for to help pay the stadium's estimated $60 million construction costs.
The city or the RDA, however, might be able to put together a deal in which Sinclair keeps some of the land but allows the soccer stadium to be built.
"This is a spectacular site. It's got ready access off the freeway off Sixth South, and it's right off a light-rail line," Anderson said. If selected, "It will provide the impetus for significant development, all of which will provide a badly needed south anchor to Main Street."
The city is also committed to building an additional light-rail stop at the proposed stadium, near 650 South, Anderson said. That stop would be stuck between the 550 South stop and the 900 South stop currently under construction.
The one block owner not contacted by the city is Tony Martinez, who owns a small sliver of land on the block's southern side. Martinez, who also owns several Blue Boutique shops in the Salt Lake Valley, told the Deseret Morning News from Las Vegas Friday that he is a very willing seller.
"I was actually thinking of selling anyway," Martinez said. "I had already contacted a real estate agent to list it in November."
Still, at least one property owner claimed he hadn't been contacted and said any sale would need approval from his company's board.
"I haven't heard a word from the city," said Edward Collister, president and general manager of Quality Oil Co. Properties, which owns a chunk of land and a building on the block's southern side. "This is the first time I've heard about it."
Executives representing two other property owners, Capitol Automotive LLC and 7th South Investors LLC, did not return calls seeking comment.
The block sits inside the RDA's West Temple Gateway Project Area, which Oka said has very little money available for projects. The RDA, then, is looking at other ways to finance the project. That financing could come as tax increments, which would take the increased tax revenue the soccer stadium would generate and put that money toward payments on the land.
Such tax increments have been controversial, since they funnel tax dollars away from school districts and other public programs.
Oka said there is a "threshold of pain" at which the RDA would conclude the land was simply too expensive. He declined to specify that threshold.
Several City Council members have suggested they would be amenable to a soccer-stadium deal similar to the deal the city gave Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller when he built the Delta Center. Then, the city gave Miller free land if he would pay for the stadium's construction costs.
Other council members, however, have seemed less enthusiastic about the stadium's costs.
"I'm more fiscally conservative than others," new Council Chairman Dale Lambert said.
While the stadium will be pricey, the initial designs are attractive, according to those who have seen them. As planned, the stadium would be surrounded by retail store fronts on the sidewalk, with the stadium tucked inside.
"It's broken up into small pieces that look like store fronts going around the whole thing," Internet Properties owner Vasilios Priskos said. "It belongs downtown. It's actually a pretty neat fit."
Salt Lake Chamber President Lane Beattie said the chamber supports keeping the stadium downtown but said he is unsure whether the stadium will be an economic generator.
"A lot of that depends on who's paying for what," he said. "How much are they asking from the citizens? We're going to be very interested in looking at those numbers and seeing what's anticipated and what the economic advantages will be."
The site the city picked was one of nine it considered in the downtown area but was by far the farthest east. The other sites were all west of 300 West with a few in the Gateway Mixed Use District and some farther south, one even past 900 South.
During its first season and until a new stadium gets built, Real Salt Lake will play at the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium. Soccer advocates have said the 45,000-seat stadium is too cavernous to create a good soccer atmosphere so they want a smaller, soccer-specific stadium of about 20,000 to 25,000 seats. Real Salt Lake officials said they will work to fill the stadium with other events such as concerts and high school sports when the soccer team isn't playing one of its 20 or so home games.
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