The real-estate magnate and sports enthusiast says he can get people from all over the world to flock to this growing southwest Salt Lake County suburb of 15,000.

His bait? An $85 million, 200-acre nonprofit school and swath of athletic facilities unlike anything Utah high-school sports has seen.

Jones currently runs Utah Southvalley Community High School at Woodland Hills, located in Murray, and uses Granite High School's athletic facilities. But he wants to move to a new Herriman campus so he can expand beyond his 220 students, serving 1,260 by this fall.

"What we're doing is admirable," Jones told Herriman's elected officials earlier this week. "Where we want to go is enviable."

All he needs are nods from the city and a land deal from developer/property owner Dave Millheim.

Millheim says he's supportive. The project could bring residents, in the midst of a soft real-estate market, to his coming housing development.

But he wants to tie up loose ends before committing to such a huge undertaking.

Some Herriman officials say the project could give the city another amenity to set it apart from the rest of the valley. The only concern involved the rapid growth the city has already experienced.

Jones wants Herriman because of its central location to the state's seven largest high schools.

"A lot of those kids get overlooked or passed by," Jones said in an interview Friday. "We'd like to be their alternative."

The planned tuition for the proposed school: $15,000 per year. But Jones says 20 percent of students likely would earn scholarships.

And if the former college athlete gets his way, his cardinal-and-gold-clad high school athletics teams - they're called the "USC Trojans" - would practice in facilities akin to its namesake, the University of Southern California.

Renderings shown to the City Council Thursday include a football stadium, a track to double as a soccer and lacrosse field, a basketball arena, a state-of-the-art swimming facility, an expansive recreation center and underground parking.

The public could use the facilities for a fee, but Jones says Herriman residents would get 50 percent off, and the school would have priority use.

The school's sports teams cannot yet compete in high school athletics. Jones hopes that will change at an April 3 Utah High Schools Activities Association meeting.

But he's already equipped with a strong cast of leaders: Former University of Utah star Marc Jackson coaches the basketball team, former Highland Ram Larry Wilson commands footballers and former Skyline Eagle Steve Marsing is the new principal.

And Jones stresses that his school extends beyond athletics.

Across the street from the planned sports facilities would lie a 63-acre school campus, complete with dormitories to house around 300 international students.

Jones says Chile, Peru, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia and Tonga already want to send students to his internationally accredited program.

The school and facilities - proposed to be built in the midst of the 3,900 acres recently disconnected from Bluffdale and annexed into Herriman - would create 300 jobs, says Jones, adding that he can get the first buildings and track up and running in the next five months.

The confident Jones added that he has investors, and advanced planning and architectural studies have been done. He expects everything to be approved and ground to be broken by the month's end.

Herriman Mayor Lynn Crane is less sure.

"This is in the preliminary stages," the mayor cautioned Friday. "It's a project that may or may not materialize.

"It certainly could provide a lot of positive things for the community, but we'll just have to see how things develop."

sgehrke@sltrib.com