One of Salt Lake City's unfulfilled promises is to build a soccer complex adjoining the Jordan River near 2200 North. Voters in 2003 approved a $15.3 million bond issue toward that end, and Real Salt Lake has pledged $7.5 million in matching funds. The city has purchased 160 acres of land from the state for the site.

Yet at this late date, as the city is getting ready to draw final plans and break ground next year, some people want to stop the game. They want the land for a nature park.

While we believe that a nature park on the river would be a wonderful thing, we believe that reconsidering the location of the sports complex now is not. The athletic fields are a worthwhile use of the land, which the city has purchased for that purpose. While it is true that the bond election did not specify where the soccer fields would be built, the Jordan River site between I-215 and Redwood Road has been the preferred one from that time. When we endorsed the bond election in 2003, we said that the fields would be built there. We believe that was the understanding of public officials and of most voters when they approved the bond issue.

Reversing field now might kill the sports complex because Real Salt Lake's $7.5 million pledge expires at the end of 2010. And it would not guarantee that a nature park would be built. Unlike the soccer project, no funding has been identified for a nature park, and the land was not purchased from the state for that purpose.

The people who want a nature park say that the soccer fields can be built anywhere, but that the nature preserve can only be located on the river's riparian habitat. They are half right. The river's ecosystem can't be relocated.

But as a practical matter, neither can the soccer complex. From the outset, the idea was to build a large complex of fields near enough to downtown that it could host regional tournaments. The resulting revenues would help offset the operating costs of the complex.

But there aren't other 160-acre parcels lying around Salt Lake City that the city could afford to acquire for this purpose. City officials have looked. What's more, locating the complex at the preferred site would create a recreation jewel on the city's west side, which could use both the facilities and the attendant prestige.

We believe that rescuing the Jordan River and transforming it into a natural and recreational resource is an important priority. But we also believe that youth sports, exercise and open space are important, too. Salt Lake City needs to do both. On this site, however, soccer has first dibs.