Utah House passes MLB ballpark funding bill, but some details remain uncertain

The Utah House Tuesday passed a "dramatically revised version" of a bill to “fund a new stadium and the surrounding entertainment district ” for an MLB team in Salt Lake City, but exactly how the funds would be repaid “is now unclear,” according to Robert Gehrke of the SALT LAKE TRIBUNE. While the bill still “authorizes the state to issue up to” $900M in bonds to build the stadium, gone is the hotel tax that would have been “charged statewide and poured an estimated” $38.4M a year into the project. A tax on rental cars “remains,” but will not “take effect until Utah gets a Major League Baseball franchise and, even then, would generate only about" $6M a year. The newly created Utah Fairpark Area Investment and Restoration District would “collect the state portion of new sales tax and property tax generated in the area” and “use it to subsidize the infrastructure and other amenities, like restaurants, hotels and bars in the area and a stadium.” Meanwhile, the Utah Senate passed SB272 , which allows Salt Lake City to “create a sports and entertainment district over a nine-block area in downtown Salt Lake City” and “impose a citywide tax increase of 0.5 percentage points, with the revenue going to building a hockey arena in hopes of attracting” an NHL team. Gehrke noted like the ballpark bill, SB272 would “free up about” $1B in public financing for a hockey stadium and the surrounding area ( SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, 2/27 ). Earlier yesterday, Jazz owner Ryan Smith  posted on X  a rendering of a "bustling, but unidentified downtown street with a brand new sports arena sporting a Jazz logo" ( DESERET NEWS, 2/27 ).

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