Recently, there have been rumors and news that Ryan Smith, owner of the Utah Jazz NBA basketball team, and a cadre of other interested parties are seeking to bring more professional sports teams to Utah.
Sports fans from across the state are salivating at the possibility, whether it’s real or just hype. But this leads to an obvious question: If you are successful in bringing a Major League Baseball or National Football League team to the Beehive State, where will the new stadium be built?
Do you really want a 49ers-type situation, where the “San Francisco” team has its stadium an hour’s drive away from the actual city? Are you really going to put the stadium in Draper or Daybreak, where an ocean of asphalt will likely be needed to satisfy the needs of game day parking? Where there will never be a true urban neighborhood surrounding it? In an era where auto-oriented sprawl is being rightly criticized for being inefficient and wasteful, is the state of Utah going to allow an opportunity like this to go to the suburbs?
Ironically, the Utah Jazz’s arena is in downtown Salt Lake City and Real Salt Lake has, despite the name, set up shop in Sandy. Let’s be real, “Real Sandy” doesn’t really have the same ring to it. Who’s Sandy?
Anyway, what I am saying is that I believe that Salt Lake City proper, the well-established capital of both the state and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, deserves to host a professional team that actually bears its name. Furthermore, I believe it would be a mutually beneficial relationship.
Vivint Arena, where the Jazz play, is directly adjacent to a burgeoning restaurant and bar scene, many established hotels, tourist destinations and transit options that can bring visiting fans to and from the airport as well as local fans from across the Wasatch Front. On the other hand, RSL’s Mountain America (formerly Rio Tinto) Stadium has, despite some effort from Sandy’s government, very little of these benefits. It may never have the kind of character, sense of place, accessibility and engagement with the city that soccer stadiums do in cities in Europe and Mexico.
Fortunately, future pro teams in Utah do have better real estate options in the capital city.
While a National Hockey League arena could easily fit inside one of SLC’s record-breaking city blocks, such as the sadly vacant Block 40 at Main Street and 400 South, an NFL or MLB stadium project would probably need more space than that.
One intriguing option might be SLC’s new “Power District” on North Temple between the Salt Lake City International Airport and downtown. There, the triple-smoke-stacked Gadsby power plant is scheduled for decommissioning and will be redeveloped in sections by its owner, Rocky Mountain Power, into a 100-acre mixed-use neighborhood that will also be home to its new headquarters. With access to the airport, downtown, both interstates, Bangerter Highway, as well as TRAX and FrontRunner, the site of this new district represents the most transportation-adjacent underdeveloped site in the entire state.
A new stadium in the Power District would have sweeping views of downtown SLC and the Wasatch Range, be right on the Jordan River trail, be surrounded by an already-growing urban neighborhood and be centrally-located for fans coming from all four cardinal directions: south from Ogden, east from Tooele, west from Park City and north from Utah County. Fans from out-of-state would be just a few TRAX stops from the airport and a few more from downtown Salt Lake City.
Is there a better place in the entire state for a new stadium? Unless the Rio Grande Plan becomes a reality, I don’t think so. “The Point” in Draper, despite what they’ll tell you, won’t even come close.
Maybe a stadium in the Power District isn’t in the cards. Maybe it is. The point here is that if a professional sports franchise does decide to come to Utah, Salt Lake City clearly offers the best combination of opportunity, accessibility and character of any city in the region and I think it deserves a fair chance at hosting it.
Matthew Givens
Matthew Givens grew up in Ogden and received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Utah in 2017. Although not an urban planner by trade, he is actively involved with the new urbanist community in Salt Lake City.