Plans unveiled for 'Real City' in Sandy

SANDY — Dave Checketts wants to open a stadium in Sandy for his professional soccer team, Real Salt Lake, by July 4, 2007 — a speedy time line that Checketts detailed Wednesday along with the official announcement of the stadium's location.

Checketts wants the stadium on 22 acres that the team has under contract on the northwest corner of 9400 South and State Street. The land will hold the stadium, practice fields, restaurants and shops to make "almost a Real City here in Sandy," he said.

Checketts does not know how much the proposal will cost, although he estimated that it will be "northward of what we were talking about." Team officials have quoted a price tag of $60 million to $65 million and hinted they want up to half of that to be public money.

Drawings by architect Gino Rossetti show a 25,000-seat stadium that includes a permanent performing arts stage and a partially open roof, allowing a view of the Wasatch Mountains to the east. Outside the stadium, Rossetti's drawings show patrons at restaurants and milling around a fountain plaza.

"It will be significantly financed through private capital," Checketts said. "It is not going to be done in a way that will increase the load on the taxpayers. This is not a George Bush 'read my lips' thing. It will not be done."

No new tax burden on residents does not necessarily mean that no tax money will be involved, however.

Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan said that $20 million to $25 million the Legislature has earmarked for a parking garage at the South Towne Exposition Center, across the street from the site, could pay for a shared garage for the two venues and part of the stadium's land. Dolan's plan must meet Salt Lake County approval, but Peter Corroon, Salt Lake County mayor and Real Salt Lake season ticket holder, said that he was "looking forward to the stadium in Sandy."

Checketts said he settled on Sandy only after "agonizing over making a decision," and that politics had something to do with his choice.

"It would be wrong to say that political winds blowing did not have anything to do with it. But it would be absolutely wrong to say that the Rocky factor did this," he said, discounting accusations that Salt Lake's outspoken mayor might have swayed him against the city the team is named after.