Stadium plan is Real as it gets

But instead of the county setting aside hotel-room taxes for the project, those tax revenues, under the legislation passed by the House Thursday, will go to the Governor's Office of Economic Development.

HB38 allows the state to collect $35 million of Salt Lake County's hotel-tax revenue for the next 20 years to be used for the stadium site. That money will be used to build a $20 million parking garage that's been in the works since 2005 in Sandy and $15 million worth of adjacent land where the stadium will be built.

"It will be kind of a pass through," Jason Perry, the economic development office's executive director, said. "As part of that we'll have some oversight." He said even before the bill was passed, there have been meetings on the agreement.

"Over the last several days, we started talking about some of the details of the plan," Perry said, including a guarantee that the team will stay. The county's agreement mandated Real remain for 30 years or pay a $10 million fine.

"All those promises, that included, are the details we are being charged right now to make sure are part of the agreement and that the state's interests are covered through every step of the negotiations," he said.

A question-and-answer sheet on team letterhead was circulated among lawmakers before Thursday's vote, dealing with some of the other promises already made that will go into the new agreement.

The team still pledges to kick in $7.5 million toward a youth sports complex in northwest Salt Lake City, establish an elite soccer academy, give away 500 tickets per home game to charity and provide signs and other promotional materials to state and local governments.

It's Sandy's ball now

Sandy City plans to discuss terms of the interlocal agreement and a development agreement during a Tuesday council meeting. And the Sandy Redevelopment Agency board will begin the process of creating a community development area around the stadium, to redirect $10 million in property taxes for phase one of the $110 million stadium. That CDA dollar amount could bump up to $15 million if Real expands to phase two of the stadium project that includes a hotel and broadcast studio.

"We're pleased to finally have a chance to get in the game. We've been sitting on the sidelines," said Sandy Councilman Steve Fairbanks.

Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan, who has been working on a stadium deal with Real for almost two years, said he was relieved and exhausted, but also said Sandy is far from being finished.

"It really begins now for us. We have a lot of details to put together and a lot of guarantees and assurances to put together," he said.