The day the Legislature approved a lucrative $35 million funding plan for the Real Salt Lake soccer stadium, the Major League team sent Mary Kaye Huntsman 35 roses.

Utah's first lady may have had more of an influence than a lavish bouquet of roses gives her credit for. The night Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon denied the county's share of hotel-room tax dollars for the stadium, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. returned home to an upset wife.

"The truth be told, we would not be standing here without Mary Kaye's insistence that RSL stay here," team owner Dave Checketts said the day the House passed the bill 48-24. In the end, the bill garnered bipartisan support from the majority of the House and the Senate.

The governor put the deal on a fast track after Corroon turned it down days earlier, deeming it too risky of an investment. He championed the plan to give Real the public dollars it wanted to build a $110 million soccer stadium in Sandy and pressured lawmakers to pass the needed legislation to keep the team in the state.

"I think the key to it was the governor. I don't think it would have happened without the governor stepping forward and seeing this was a long-term investment for the state of Utah. He saw the vision," Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan said. "He took a leadership role that meant everything."

Sandy plans to host a series of public hearings and send out literature to constituents to explain the terms of the funding deal. Dolan said he wants residents to get the right numbers and affirm to them that taxes will not be raised.

The bill, HB38, allows the state to collect $35 million of Salt Lake County's hotel-tax revenue for the next 20 years to be used at the stadium site at 9256 S. State. That money will be used to build a $20 million parking garage that's been in the works since 2005 in Sandy and for $15 million worth of adjacent land where the stadium will be built.

The ball is now in Sandy's court — or field, appropriately. Sandy city has been steadily moving forward with planning and zoning on the site. The City Council met Tuesday and approved zoning for the stadium's 111-foot building height. Wednesday was Sandy's first committee meeting to study parking and traffic around the stadium, and the planning commission is expected to give preliminary site plan approval on stadium plans today.

"The city is far ahead of Real right now," said Randy Sant, Sandy's economic development director. "We're waiting for Real to catch up with us."

Sandy has committed $10 million in redevelopment agency dollars to be used at the site. That amount could bump up to $15 million if Real expands to phase two of the stadium project that includes a hotel and broadcast studio.

Sant said Real has secured $10 million to borrow from a private financier to begin construction on the stadium. Construction should start within two weeks. However, the stadium will most likely be completed in August 2008 rather than the original July 4, 2008, deadline because of the delay it took securing public dollars.

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