From Deseret News archives:
Sleepy Vineyard abuzz over a stadium
It's a sleepy little town, last year boasting no more than 150 residents.
Barns and grain silos dot a few of the home lots where some of the residents have lived their whole lives. Tractors are parked in the front of homes and old, rusting plows are used as lawn art.
Vineyard, hidden just west of Orem, hardly seems the place for a major sports team to make its home. And yet, that's one idea currently on the table for Real Salt Lake, Utah's first major league soccer team.
The idea of a major athletic team building a stadium in their tiny town has set Vineyard abuzz. To be sure, some like it and some don't.
But opinions aren't in short supply about the offer by Anderson Geneva LLC, which owns the land, to give Real Salt Lake 30 acres for the stadium.
Norman Holdaway, a Vineyard town councilman and liaison between Vineyard's Planning Commission and the town council, said he is excited by the prospect.
"We know it will bring a lot more people to the area, which we've kind of avoided for a long time, but we know something's going to change," he said. "This would be an economic boom for the town. I've talked to the planning committee about it, and we're pretty well decided that we'd like to do anything we can to promote that kind of development."
Vineyard town leaders have already met for preliminary, informal discussions with Anderson Geneva about the option.
Holdaway said the council would be cautious about the particular type of development but that overall he feels the stadium could end up being just what the town needs.
"We don't want it to be another downtown Salt Lake City," he said. "We'd plan it so it has the variety. This would be the kind of project where it would bring people in, but not to live. They'd come for an event, spend some money, and leave. That's the best way to look at it. I think it would be a very good thing for the town."
Count Patrice Dean among those who see things differently.
"I don't think a soccer stadium is a very good fit for Vineyard. It's an old dairy town," said Dean, a relative newcomer to the town.
Like many in the town, Dean, who has lived in Vineyard two years, can't decide if a soccer stadium is an economic godsend or slightly sad and mildly laughable.
"It'll be hard for the town not to change, but change is not always bad," she said.
On the one hand, a soccer stadium would bring with it other businesses, like restaurants and souvenir shops, which would bring in the kind of money never before seen in the town.
On the other, the small-town feel is what many Vineyarders love best, and an economic boom could chip away at their quiet way of life.
