Real Nice: Designs For 25,000-seat RSL Stadium Unveiled

Ancillary Development Could Join Stadium Plan

Illustrations by architect Gino Rossetti for the new stadium in Sandy, Utah, for Real Salt Lake (RSL) 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,” according to Kersten Swinyard of the DESERET NEWS. The drawings also depict restaurants and a fountain plaza outside the facility. One possible source for the public money needed to build the stadium is “a sports entertainment zone, possibly modeled after a similar zone in Phoenix” for the D’Backs (DESERET NEWS, 10/13). In Salt Lake City, Santini & May report RSL Owner Dave Checketts’ ideas for the stadium include “housing, shopping and dining along with practice fields, open space and hotels.” Checketts: “It will almost be a ‘Real’ city. This will be a spectacular Soccer City, USA.” The price for the project could increase to $75M, which Checketts said “is going to be significantly financed through private capital. It is not going to be done in a way that will increase the load on the Utah taxpayers.” Checketts did not give a percentage for how much will be privately financed (SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 10/13).

GARAGE BAND: On Wednesday, Swinyard reported Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan is “proposing to purchase land” for the stadium and “build a parking garage with $20[M] in taxpayer money originally earmarked” for a different parking garage. Salt Lake City leaders are “furious” about Dolan’s plan because they say Salt Lake City “contributed $8[M] to the larger fund from which the $20[M] was drawn.” Salt Lake City Council Chair Dale Lambert said that he “never would have supported the $8[M] contribution had he known Sandy would use the parking garage to bolster its bid for the stadium.” Lambert: “I just think that’s wrong and is contrary to the representations that were made to us and the deal that was made by Salt Lake City” (DESERET NEWS, 10/12).

NOTES: The new stadium is “being designed to include studios for the [CSTV’s] Mountain West TV,” but the studio “may not end up in Utah.” RSL Senior Dir of Communications Trey Fitz-Gerald said that Utah is “in a bidding war with Denver for the business” (SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 10/13)....RSL’s final attendance for the ’05 season was 18,036, the second-highest mark in MLS this year (DESERET NEWS, 10/13).