Sandy nearer Real stadium

SANDY — The Sandy City Council on Tuesday night approved a resolution that inches the city toward a $15 million investment in a professional soccer stadium. Across town, meanwhile, residents urged the Jordan Board of Education not to give the project a single penny.

Last month, the Salt Lake County Council approved a funding plan to give Real Salt Lake $55 million in public subsidies for a $180 million stadium, and an adjoining hotel and broadcast studio. Those public dollars include $15 million in Redevelopment Agency funds from Sandy.

RDA dollars are tools cities use to spur economic development. Taxing entities, including school districts, divert their share of property-tax dollars to the redevelopment project for a time.

Sandy plans to use a new track of recent RDA legislation to give the team the $15 million promised for the stadium. That track, community-development area (CDA) money, uses only the city's and county's cut of property taxes. Under a CDA, school districts can opt in if they want to.

The City Council approved a resolution that would use a CDA for phase one of the 136-acre project. That phase includes the 42 acres for the Real project. It also includes 25-30 acres of BD Medical, the medical technology giant with operations in Sandy.

Both projects are on 9400 South and State Street; BD Medical is at the southwest end, the Real site is on the northwest.

That CDA dollar amount is not set yet, however, because the plan has not been created. Randy Sant, Sandy's economic development director, said he will spend the next month forming that budget and benefit analysis.

It will not get the green light until a public hearing is held, which Sant estimates to be in November.

Before that hearing, Sant said he will spend his time creating a strong budget he hopes Jordan School District will want to opt-in on because of the economic value in the long run.

"The bottom line is if they don't opt-in, we can't bond for $15 million. We can bond for $10 million. And someone has to come up with $5 million or cut the project by $5 million. One of those two have to happen," Sant said. "Will Real move forward with or without them? That question should be posed to Real."

Already, residents are telling the Jordan Board of Education to say, "no way."

"Keep the money in the school district where it belongs, not in a small-time soccer (operation)," Sandy resident Thomas Walke told the board Tuesday.