Ivins • Look out, Las Vegas.
Just two hours east on Interstate 15, in the southern Utah town of Ivins near St. George, a $2 billion mega-resort is preparing to open.
Nearly four times the original size of California’s Disneyland, the 600-plus-acre Black Desert Resort will dwarf the Utah competition. Its developers are looking to entice northern Utah residents and businesses that frequent Las Vegas.
Patrick Manning, managing partner of Black Desert Resort, believes the Ivins resort’s world-class amenities and convention space will be a draw for Wasatch Front businesses that prefer to have employees on-site rather than go to Las Vegas and lose them to off-site entertainment.
“I think it is going to be a gamechanger for a lot of northern Utah companies,” Manning told The Salt Lake Tribune.
That said, neither Black Desert developers nor Utah tourism officials expect to peel away so many visitors from, say, Park City’s slopes or Sin City’s casinos and conventions to significantly impact either destination.
“It’s not like we have 150,000 square feet of meeting space like some of the [Las Vegas] hotels do,” said Kate Brown, Black Desert’s vice president of sales and marketing. “So I think they probably wouldn’t even feel the business that we take from them.”
Las Vegas and Park City lure more than 40 million and 4 million visitors per year, respectively. Moreover, Las Vegas has more than 150,000 hotel rooms and a combined 15 million square feet of meeting and event space, according to the Clark County Office of Community and Economic Development.
Just how many Black Desert visitors might attract per year to Ivins, which itself is home to just 10,500 residents, is unknown at this point. As far as meeting and convention space goes, the Ivins resort has a combined 46,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space for conventions and other events. It is outfitted with state-of-the-art technology that means organizers don’t have to bring in their own expensive equipment, Brown said.
Natalie Randall, managing director of the Utah Office of Tourism and Film, doesn’t see the competition for tourists and tourist dollars as a zero-sum game.
“I don’t look at it as taking away from one community and having it go to another,” Randall said. “But overall, as a state, [Black Desert] is the opportunity to diversify … and spread our visitors throughout the state.”
Colorado, Mojave and Great Basin
Still, the hype about Black Desert is not hyperbole. For starters, it is the only place in the nation where there is a convergence of three major ecosystems: the Colorado Plateau, Mojave Desert and Great Basin. Its location within the shadow of majestic Red Mountain and rugged redrock cliffs is also a major calling card.
Size also matters. Once the luxury resort is built out over the next five to 10 years, it will have 3,000 rooms, nearly four times the 775 rooms offered by Salt Lake City’s Grand America Hotel. Room rates will be priced from about $350, up to $5,000 a night for a penthouse suite. The resort is offering a promotional rate of $199 per night to Utahns, as well as a $50 resort credit, through March 2025.
The grand opening is slated for April 2025.
The resort already has a 19-hole championship golf course designed by late-golfing great Tom Weiskopf. Its lush greens, framed by black lava fields, has prompted prominent golf architect Phil Smith to liken it to Hawaii and Arizona rolled into one.
Black Desert is fast becoming a renowned golf destination, one of only three courses in the country the PGA has chosen to host both a Tour FedEx Cup event and an LPGA tournament. The other two courses are at Pebble Beach in California and Tiburón in Naples, Florida.
Hordes of visitors will get a sneak preview of Black Desert at the men’s FedEx Cup event, the first PGA event in Utah in more than six decades, from Oct. 9-13. Manning estimates there will be seven restaurants and 200 to 250 rooms open in time for the event.
Another marquee attraction will be the Boardwalk, a pedestrian-only promenade of restaurants, boutiques and galleries that will be open to the general public when construction is completed in 2028. Four Walmart-sized, underground parking lots will be built underneath it. Admission to the Boardwalk is free.
Miles of walking trails that traverse the resort amid native desert flora and fauna will also be available to non-paying visitors and those staying at the resort. There are several large ponds resort officials have turned into a haven for 400 endangered Virgin River chub.
If visitors don’t want to golf or shop, other hospitality and entertainment options are coming into view. The hotel will have a heated outdoor infinity pool and hot tub. Amenities in the works or on the drawing board include a 15,000-square-foot luxury spa and wellness center that will debut in the spring of 2025, a waterpark that will open in 2026, more than 20 restaurants and one village that caters to golf guests and another that is more geared toward families that stay at Black Desert.
In an editorial board meeting with The Tribune, Manning talked about building a sports arena at the resort that could seat as many as 12,500 people. He said State Sen. Jerry Stevenson (R- Layton) has agreed to sponsor a proposed bill in an upcoming legislative session for help with funding an arena.
In a post on NextDoor, Manning said his remarks about an arena that could provide music and sports in the future were “entirely theoretical” and that resort officials have not spoken with anyone or hired someone to design such a structure.
“We aren’t asking taxpayers to pay for anything,” he texted The Tribune.
‘Utah’s resort’
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Patrick Manning, left, and Joe Platt examine a map of the 630-acre Black Desert Resort in Ivins in August 2023.
Before he was inaugurated, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Black Desert is destined to become “Utah’s resort,” according to Manning.
Resort officials project it will generate $57 million in transient room taxes and $33 million in sales tax during its first 40 years of operation. The resort will also employ roughly 2,500 people. Black Desert is not receiving any tax breaks from Ivins or Washington County, according to Manning.
“It’s all really positive, in my opinion,” Ivins Mayor Chris Hart told The Tribune several months ago. “Our city is developing as a destination for tourists and as a place that people will want to come and visit.”
Even so, pitting Black Desert against Las Vegas is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Brittany McMichael, director of the Greater Zion Convention and Tourism Office, said Black Desert and the surrounding area will draw a different kind of visitor.
“Black Desert’s convention space will most likely appeal to groups who love nature and luxury experiences in a more scenic environment …” she said. “Greater Zion attracts visitors from all over the country as well as being a major draw for international visitors. We see a substantial amount of visitors coming from Nevada, California, Arizona, Colorado and Washington.”
While northern Utah and nearby states represent a potential audience, Brown said Black Desert is pitching the resort to visitors and event planners nationwide and plans to take that effort international soon.
Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.
