Downtown district gets financial tools for remodel while Fairpark will be kept to one stadium
An aerial view shows the Delta Center, right, and Salt Palace Convention Center, left, on 300 West between South Temple and 100 South in Salt Lake City on Monday, July 29, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
The plans for the districts supporting professional hockey and, potentially, baseball are keeping their momentum in Utah after the Legislature considered a series of bills to draw essential financial paths for an area in downtown Salt Lake City, or to allow multiple stadiums on a west-side district.
Last year was big for special districts and funding arenas at the Utah Legislature. Lawmakers voted to approve a Capital City Revitalization Zone to host the state's new National Hockey League team, and a Fairpark Area Investment and Restoration District to help with the bid to attract a Major League Baseball franchise — both projects with funding mechanisms to capture almost $1 billion each.
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The fate of all 2025 legislation addressing the districts were ultimately decided on the last day of the general session, some undergoing major makeovers before approval and one of them failing to get any House hearings to advance it. Here are some of the highlights.
Senators voted on day one to approve SB26, sponsored by Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville, which was initially a technical cleanup bill. But, after it stalled for weeks, the legislation received a committee hearing with big changes, including a funding mechanism for renovations at the Salt Palace Convention Center, which is located within the downtown revitalization district's boundaries and owned by Salt Lake County.
'This bill allows Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City to invest in the redevelopment of the convention center, Abravanel Hall and the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art,' SB26's House floor sponsor James Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville said, 'because who doesn't think downtown needs a little revitalization?'
The legislation doesn't require Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County or the state to raise taxes, it allows the city and county to use existing tax authorizations to finance rebuilding the convention center, and revitalization of its surrounding areas.
Fifty percent of any growth that happens in state sales tax within the four-block area downtown will go to the project, Dunnigan said.
'The current base of all the sales tax that's coming in on the base level, that will continue to come to the state,' Dunnigan said. 'All that this captures is if new development goes in and then sales tax increases, then it captures some of that growth.'
Under the policy, the county will oversee the convention center's remodel while adhering to a budget established by the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity. None of the funds would be used for private development, Dunnigan reiterated.
The city, the county and the Smith Entertainment Group — which owns the Utah Jazz and the state's NHL team — are working 'to align development goals, to help clean up downtown, promote economic development and reconnect the east and west side of downtown,' Dunnigan said on Friday.
SB306, another proposal to fund the convention center renovations from Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, didn't get a hearing in the House. The bill would have allowed repurposing a portion of the county's sales and use tax for highways and public transit for the revitalization of the convention center and other surrounding projects.
Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson spoke in support of McCay's bill during a committee presentation, describing its potential to be 'a win for the community,' as Salt Lake prepares to host the 2034 Olympic Games.
'We're no longer in the road business. If you're from Salt Lake County or watching you'll see that we're almost wall-to-wall cities. Other than our canyons, we're generally almost built out with city state roads primarily,' Wilson said. While the bill would have still allowed the county to have some spending on transportation with the funds, redirecting a portion of them for the cause made sense, she added.
When Sen. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, first introduced a cleanup bill addressing the Fairpark district, a single letter drew much attention because of its big implications; stadiums, in plural, would be allowed, the bill said then.
They would also be smaller stadiums, with the minimum capacity of hosting 18,000 spectators and not the 30,000 contemplated for the potential MLB team. But, that ended up being removed.
'As we got further into the master plan across the stadium, (and) Fairpark, it was just pretty much determined that the best use of the area would be just one individual stadium, as far as when we planned it out,' Sandall said. 'So we figured there was no reason in the bill file to leave the option hanging out there.'
The concept of this bill dates back to the last weeks of the 2024 session, Sandall added, with some factors still needing to be cleared up in code, including the potential need for a second stadium.
What was the stadium for? That remains a mystery.
'We never did find out, quite honestly, what it was for,' Sandall said.
A provision that would have brought forward a proposed October start date for when the district's authority could start collecting a car rental tax also died after Sandall learned about a verbal commitment to not levy the tax until an MLB team was announced.
The bill was then left with a cleaner explanation of how much of the tax increment will go to fund a municipal service agreement with Salt Lake City.
As for now, a year after the Legislature passed the first plans for the district, an authority was set up and plans have already started running, Sandall said.
'My biggest enthusiasm right now is around the safety and security in the district, now, as quite honestly, we begin to lay all of the underground work before we start to go vertical with projects,' he said. 'I'm pretty excited. We also have a really, really nice master plan coming together.'
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