This week’s groundbreaking for the Utah Hockey Club’s practice facility located at the Shops at South Town wasn’t just for pomp and circumstance — though it certainly had that in spades, with golden shovels and innumerable photos taken.
It also was a statement of intent from both Sandy City and the Smith Entertainment Group: They plan to make the 111-acre site a center of southern Salt Lake Valley redevelopment.
“This is the perfect intersection of East, South, North, and West in this state. It’s something that I drive by every single day,” SEG and Utah Hockey Club owner Ryan Smith said Monday. “We all can see that the retail world has shifted a little bit. We plan on actually not stopping just with the ice center here, but actually making this a destination for people to come and interact with the NHL brand.”
To that end, officials this week shared their visions for new entertainment options, restaurants, affordable housing — and a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 15.
The first project at the site, however, will be the ice center. SEG, which completed its purchase of the Sandy shopping mall earlier this month, will build the Utah Hockey Club’s offices and working areas in the area immediately adjacent to the former Macy’s department store and sustainable art exhibit Dreamscapes. But the building will be expanded to add two new ice rinks where a parking lot currently faces 10600 South.
The facility will be built by Layton Construction, while Babcock Design is creating the design for the building. It’s slated to be finished by October 2025 — when the hockey team will begin using it for the beginning of the 2025-26 season.
Renderings of the Utah Hockey Club's new practice facility and offices, released Monday. (Smith Entertainment Group)
The city and team’s plan is for the ice rinks to be used “around the clock,” Sandy Mayor Monica Zoltanski said. When the NHL team needs them for practice, the pros will skate there; during other times, officials hope the rinks will be used by youth and adult hockey leagues. The Utah Hockey Club (its permanent name is still to be determined) will also have its player locker room, player recreation and work spaces all located in the complex.
More to come
It was clear upon talking to those at the groundbreaking, especially Sandy City leaders, that bigger plans were in store for the site.
The Smith Entertainment Group made clear to mall business owners — other than the owners of Dreamscapes, which was asked to vacate its space in May — that they wouldn’t be displaced, according to a memo sent last Friday and first obtained by KSL. In the memo, SEG indicated that the current mall management team remained in place, and the sale would not impact day-to-day operations. Construction also won’t have any expected impacts on parking or traffic flow in the area, SEG said.
“The reception (among mall business owners) has been extremely positive,” Jim Olson, SEG’s project lead for the Shops at South Town said. “We’re going to bring a ton of community activation. We’re going to bring people to the space. They can come here for hockey practices and then go shop or go eat or do whatever you know they need to do or want to do while practices are going on. We’re initially not touching any of the existing mall areas that are currently being operated. ... All we know we’re doing is being additive to this entire area.”
Zoltanski, though, hinted at conversations the city has had with SEG about developing the area further.
“In the long run, of course, we know this is a property that is right for economic redevelopment — from shopping, entertainment, restaurants, housing, transit connectivity, we are ready for it all,” the mayor said. “What makes malls and shopping centers in America successful, it’s those who are resilient, those that can plan and adapt to new consumer habits, changing business models, and we’ll see that here at South Town mall.”
Zoltanski referenced a proposed pedestrian bridge that would run from the South Jordan Frontrunner station on the west side of Interstate 15 to the Shops at South Town on the east side of the freeway.
Funding for that bridge has already been allocated by the Utah State Legislature in HB 488 — dependent on the Salt Lake County Council passing a 0.2% increase in its sales and use tax. Once approved, roughly $50 million would go toward the construction of the bridge over I-15.
“That’s what this area has been needing in order to truly realize the economic promise of connecting community with transit, walkability,” Zoltanski said.
The city’s goal is to begin construction on the bridge “sooner rather than later,” though in the parlance of city construction, that likely still means at least two years of wait time, officials say.
“Entertainment, restaurants, walkability, affordable housing. That’s all planned, and that’s why we’re so excited that we can now bring all those planning elements together,” Zoltanski said.
Olson, the SEG executive on the project, declined to give more details on his company’s future plans for the site.
