The Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, is pictured on July 29, 2024. (Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
The plan to raise Salt Lake City’s sales tax by 0.5% to create an entertainment district downtown keeps swiftly advancing, now with a nod from a legislative panel tasked with reviewing a deal reached by the city and Smith Entertainment Group, the parent company of the Utah Jazz and the Utah Hockey Club.
The Revitalization Zone Committee met for the first time on Tuesday and, after hearing from representatives from Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County and Smith Entertainment Group, it voted unanimously to approve a participation agreement.
Riverton Republican Sen. Dan McCay, who sponsored Senate Bill 272, the legislation that drew the path to finance $900 million to renovate the Delta Center and redevelop three downtown blocks, said after the vote that the desire to keep professional sports in Salt Lake City’s core was shared by the state and the municipalities. Only because of this local effort, he said, Utah is able to keep a vibrant downtown.
“It gives the locals the option — in this case, Salt Lake City — to have a tax that is local and helps improve local infrastructure and local needs,” McCay said. “And it was clear in talking with (Salt Lake City) Mayor Mendenhall and (Salt Lake County) Mayor Wilson that this was a local need and of local importance.”
Though the committee approved the plan, it still had some requests. The city and Smith Entertainment Group should report to them as money withdrawals and land use approvals are granted by the city. The panel also recommended the city to draft a homeless mitigation plan.
The agreement will now go back to the Salt Lake City Council, which unanimously endorsed it in July, for a final vote. The tax decision must be wrapped by Dec. 31.
Revitalization Zone Committee may also look at crime in Salt Lake City
The committee may also play a role in another controversial new law, as it’s also expected to look at “criminal behavior and its enforcement in Salt Lake City, as it relates especially to the District Attorney’s Office” at a later meeting, McCay said.
Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a bill — scheduled to become effective in July, 2025 — that targets the Salt Lake County district attorney by requiring the officer to track time spent on criminal cases. The bill also lays out a process to potentially unseat Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill by allowing the governor to recommend a “replacement prosecutor” to the Utah Supreme Court if he finds the district attorney has “failed to prosecute crimes adequately.”
After the meeting McCay told reporters that he has heard about safety concerns from business leaders who have businesses downtown.
Smith Entertainment Group estimates spending $525 million remodeling Delta Center
“There are concerns that, potentially, it’s a lack of enforcement of laws. I’ve heard from, actually, several police officers who work downtown and talk about the concerns of arrests that they make, and then the fact that it doesn’t get prosecuted later,” McCay said. “And, some of those prosecutions are important and don’t get prosecuted when, at the same time, there seems to be plenty of time to prosecute political purposes from the DA’s office.”
Gill told Utah News Dispatch he was confused by the statements. While he said his office has “prosecuted public servants who steal money from taxpayers,” he said he’s unsure if that constitutes a “political purpose.”
He also defended his record, arguing that in the last four and a half years his office screened about 80,260 cases and filed over 62,000 of them, a 77% filing rate. Combined with the over 35,000 cases he filed as Salt Lake City prosecutor, he has prosecuted almost 100,000 cases in that timeframe, he said.
“Certainly we decline some cases based on evidence or other reasons, but we have a protocol in place by which to capture that. So those officers need to contact our office, contact their chiefs of police. They know what the process is,” Gill said. “So I don’t know if this is just a solution in search of a problem.”
The District Attorney’s Office works on Class A misdemeanors or felonies, while the City Prosecutor’s Office files low-level misdemeanors. While the city’s downtown is going through growth, some restaurants, bars and sports patrons may drink and commit crimes and Gill’s office will try to hold them accountable, he said.
“That’s one part. The other part is, if the issue is, maybe what they’re not saying is, is it with the homeless population? Is it with the transient population? Is it for that population that is looking for shelter and those other social services, which the Legislature has a responsibility to address?” Gill said. “And if they’re engaging in criminal activity, we’re also addressing that.”
While he’s confused about the details on how the committee’s review process would look like, Gill said he’s “kind of excited that my policymakers are taking an interest in criminal justice issues.” He just hopes they can back that commitment up with resources to solve the issues.
The agreement
The participation agreement is a product of a “true negotiation,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said on Tuesday.
“We were grateful for the legislation that, albeit under quite rushed circumstances, with the acquisition of the team and the obligations that SEG has to the NHL to provide adequate facility in due time,” Mendenhall said, “that we had the legislation, help guide us about what the partnership agreement should include and should include on behalf of the public.”
The deal includes construction mitigation plans and public benefits, such as a special account from a new ticket fee to fund family-sized and affordable housing. Rachel Otto, chief of staff at the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office, said that preliminary estimates based on past ticket sales range from $2 million to $4 million per year.
There are also investment commitments to Japantown — a downtown stretch on 100 South in between 200 West and 300 West, the remaining piece of what was once a large community of Japanese Americans — in addition to workforce development initiatives specially for low-income individuals, youth programming, and free and subsidized tickets.
The agreement also has penalties if the sports team leaves in a 30-year timeframe. If either the NHL or NBA team leave within 15 years of the agreement, Smith Entertainment Group must pay $125 million to the city. If both of them leave, that number would rise to $250 million. That amount would be reduced by $16 million each year after that initial 15-year term and reduced to zero by the end of the 30-year contract.
During the meeting, Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson and Mike Maughan, a Smith Entertainment Group executive and project principal, pledged to preserve Abravanel Hall, home of the Utah Symphony, in its current form and current location, with renovations that could exceed $200 million.
“What we do with Abravanel Hall will not be an inexpensive proposition,” Wilson said, explaining that the building has a failing air conditioning and heating system connected to the Salt Palace, in addition to old-style seating that makes it hard to exit.
“But really this opportunity that’s presented today, I believe, has captured the public’s imagination for the preservation of the hall, and that means we, with hopefully the state’s help and other partners, can come up with that bill, the 200 million in excess to renovate that hall,” Wilson said.
The whole project will also be expensive, Wilson said. However, it would pay off by keeping the Jazz in Salt Lake City and renovating major downtown landmarks, such as the hall, the Salt Palace and the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art.
During a public comment period, some Salt Lake City residents criticized the project and the potential tax increase, arguing that these types of decisions should be included on the ballot to really capture the public’s opinion.
“Why is Salt Lake City alone facing yet another half-cent sales increase, and if, as Mayor Wilson states, you’re involving the community, why is this being rushed through without sufficient public input,” Allia DeAngelis, a resident, asked on Tuesday. “Shouldn’t we both put the tax proposal and the allocation of property to public vote, and ensure transparency and allow the community to have a direct say in how financial burdens and the city resources are managed?”
There’s still work to do, Maughan added, but Smith Entertainment Group aims to honor the past “while looking forward to the future as part of downtown.”
Utah News Dispatch, like the Idaho Capital Sun, is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and X.