Months after a Salt Lake City sales tax hike was approved to funnel $900 million to Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith’s downtown sports, entertainment, culture and convention district, a new proposal could send another $900 million to the area.
Under SB26, which was approved by lawmakers Friday and now awaits the governor’s signature, legislators created a pathway for tax revenue from the district to fund a billion-dollar upgrade of the Salt Palace Convention Center. Some of the money could also go toward Salt Lake County-owned Abravanel Hall, Taylorsville Republican Sen. Wayne Harper, the bill’s sponsor, said.
The funding would come from future tax revenue growth within the downtown stretch that includes the Delta Center and two blocks immediately to the east. The revenue would include property taxes from new development, half of the state’s portion of new sales tax revenue within the district, and a chunk of the city and county’s sales tax revenue from the zone.
“We’re just saying the sales tax that’s generated in that area,” Harper said, “we’re forgoing that as a state or as a county or as a city for that area, and putting it into that into the Salt Palace renovation.”
The hope is that the revenue would total about $900 million over a 30-year period, Harper said. The remaining $100 million needed to give the county-owned convention center a new sheen would come from other revenue sources found by Salt Lake City and the county.
“To me, this avoids the necessity of anybody coming to the state and saying, ‘We need several hundred million to renovate the Salt Palace,’ or for Salt Lake County to go through and impose a countywide tax in order to fund the Salt Palace renovation,” Harper said. “... It is users paying for that facility, those people who go there, who have a convention, who go for any type of entertainment in that area … rather than the public at large.”
Depending on future financial circumstances over the course of the 30-year revenue collection period — and more specific cost estimates for the convention center’s face-lift — the money could pay for the entire renovation, county Mayor Jenny Wilson said.
“One of the reasons we were at the table was the revenue the Salt Palace generates,” Wilson said. “... We feel this investment is not only good for the broader region, Salt Lake City and downtown, but we also think that this is a mechanism to keep supporting the arts and culture, and we’re excited about that as well.”
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall lauded the collaboration between Smith Entertainment Group, local officials and state lawmakers that pushed Harper’s bill to the governor’s desk.
“The renovation of the Salt Palace will unlock the potential of the downtown district,” Mendenhall said in a statement, “and I think I will feel a great deal of relief in the coming days that Senate Bill 26 passed.”
