The nonprofit Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation’s stated goal is to self-finance and maintain the state's 2002 Winter Olympic venues without additional burden to taxpayers.
Immediately after the 2002 Games, the fund’s total annual losses were up to $8 million. State and UOLF leaders have been able to cut that number in half, but the foundation is still in the red.
President and CEO Colin Hilton says his goal is to decrease that to $2.5 million in the next five to seven years, or else the foundation managing Olympic venues will go under before the 2034 Games.
So the foundation is pursuing land development, to help venues generate more money. At the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission Aug. 26, Hilton explained a new state law can help.
“We're looking for support to be recognized as a ‘major sporting event venue’ pursuant to a new state legislative bill that passed this last session that gives us some more tools to help us get the facility economically viable,” he told commissioners.
That’s Senate Bill 333, which allows Olympic venues, like the UOP, Utah Olympic Oval in Kearns and Soldier Hollow Nordic Center in Midway, to form “public infrastructure districts.”
PIDs would allow a venue to go into debt with bonds and pay them back with the extra property or sales tax revenue generated by development.
Hilton said the council would need to give permission for UOP to become a “major sporting event venue” under the law.
The most immediate development project the designation would help with is a roughly 120-room hotel the park applied for last year.
The designation is also just one part of a slate of changes the UOP is proposing to its development agreement with Summit County.
“Nothing dramatic, no major developments in the proposal, but we're going to be going through that at a staff level, opening it up … at a public hearing sometime in the future, with the planning commission,” Community Development Director Peter Barnes said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” in June.
The Basin planners will then issue a recommendation to the council.
Summit County and the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation are financial supporters of KPCW. For a full list, click here.
