Billionaire NBA owner nears $900 million Salt Lake revamp deal
Not everyone likes the idea.
The longest-serving member of the city’s planning commission, Bree Scheer, believes it to be a sweetheart deal with no major benefit for the municipality’s more than 200,000 residents.
“My preference as an urban planner is that we have sports,” Scheer said. “But I don’t see giving away $900 million to the sports guy and giving the land and just rolling over. Because he’s going to make a ton of money.”
Most of the subsidy would be spent revamping the existing downtown sports arena, the Delta Center. But the development will also facilitate new business opportunities and cultural happenings and generally enliven the area, a spokesperson for Smith’s group wrote in an emailed statement.
“Smith Entertainment Group is committed to reimagining downtown Salt Lake City to help ensure a vibrant, thriving downtown urban core for generations to come,” the SEG spokesperson said.
- The deal that brought an NHL team to Salt Lake City came after voters in Arizona declined to help the Coyotes build a new arena there.
“Salt Lake City would desperately like to be thought of as a major city, so they need a basketball team,” Berri said.
“It’s unfair because we’re shuffling taxpayer money to someone who’s fabulously wealthy.”
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WHAT WE CALL IT HERE
The Latter-Day Charades For Mesa City Manager Chris Brady: Water-Boy
ENVISION A PIPE
“It’s our next pocket of water,’’ City Manager Chris Brady said.
Your MesaZona Blogger Goes Rogue > Anybody Else Miss Ex-Mayor Scott Smith?
We'll leave it to readers' imagination, but perhaps it's got something to do with the changing face of politics and leadership here in the New Urban Downtown Mesa.
< Here are former mayor Scott Smith and current city manager Chris Brady in 2012 making a sales-pitch to get the Cubbies Spring Training Facility financed on-the-backs of Mesa taxpayers to the tune of over $200,000,000 for the Billionaire-Ricketts Family who bought the sports franchise in 2009.
[Use the search box on this blog for more]
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– “It’ll be totally fine if our family gets involved in politics. No one will ever find out about it so it won’t be controversial at all.”
– “Now that we own the McDonald’s across the street from Wrigley, I’m going on an all Quarter Pounder diet. Please don’t tear that place down Tom. I’m sure any hotel we put up there won’t do nearly as much business as the McDonald’s. Plus, where will all the rats go?”
RELATED
Smith Entertainment Group briefs Salt Lake City Council on 'Reimagination of Downtown Area'
31 May 2017
TY Very Much > Nepotism Here In Mesa Is Going Very Well
Meet Ryan Smith, [son of Ex-Mayor Scott Smith]
One item missing on anything in Ryan Smith's work experience is that just about the same time in 2002 he began his studies in Political Science at ASU, Scott Smith and his son started a business: Qualtrics, which conducts online market research, is a prime example of the rapid growth of the Utah economy — and the sense that Utah is straining at the limits of its growth potential.
Scott Smith started the company with his son, Ryan, and a college classmate in his Provo home in 2002. Qualtrics now employs 1,300 people, including about 800 in a new headquarters building opened in August at the mouth of Provo Canyon. And it is bringing workers to Utah as fast as it can.
Ryan Smith, now the chief executive, said Qualtrics had hired about three dozen graduates from the University of Michigan alone last year. The company estimates that new arrivals bought 100 homes in Provo last year. . . by the end of the year, Mr. Smith said, he expects the company will have more employees outside Utah than in its home state. It is growing where it finds workers.
Source: New York Times May 21, 2017
Qualtrics Locations worlwide |
Website: https://www.qualtrics.com/
He was working tirelessly for his father’s campaign and I joked with him that he was like a Mormon on a mission. Everything I needed to know about Ryan I learned in that campaign: tireless and kind, he exuded a genuine warmth for everyone around him. And after that successful campaign, we happily adopted him and it was a blessing for both parties ever since. . . "
Here's a link to High Ground to see what they do >>
http://www.azhighground.com/shaping-arizona-policy/
Scott Smith progeny Ryan Smith is no stranger to Arizona politics, according to this article Aug 19, 2014 written by Mike Sunnucks in Phoenix Business Journal that calls him out for taking 'a cheap shot'
EXCLUSIVE: One-on-one with Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith on move to KJZZ 14...The Smith Entertainment Group also announced plans to launch a new Utah Jazz subscription-based streaming service in October.
Utah Jazz announce partnership with KJZZ-TV, new streaming platform
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Owners of the Utah Jazz announced a new partnership that will make all non-nationally televised games available for free in the Beehive State using a basic television antenna.
The agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group – owners of KUTV 2News – will return game broadcasts to the station that aired them for 16 years, making KJZZ Channel 14 once again, “The Home of the Utah Jazz.”
The move means all Jazz games not broadcast on a national network will be available free to fans within the team’s local broadcast market.
Games will also be broadcast through any satellite or cable provide that carries KJZZ.
In 2009, the franchise announced a long-term deal with FSN to broadcast games, ending fan access to free, over-the-air broadcasts.
The Smith Entertainment Group also announced plans to launch a new Utah Jazz subscription-based streaming service in October.
The service will be run by a new division of the company, SEG Media, and will produce unique content, in addition to Jazz games.
Additional details about the streaming service, including cost, were expected to be released at a later date.
Tuesday’s announcement fulfilled a promise owner Ryan Smith made to fans months ago that they would have increased access to games.
“When we first took over stewardship of the team, 39% of Utah households had the ability to watch Jazz games, so as soon as the window opened last fall for us to rethink our approach to broadcasting, we began exploring all options to provide fans the most reliable access to Jazz games,” he said. “This new approach is one of the most important investments we have made since purchasing the team because it allows us to deliver Utah Jazz games to 3.3 million plus Utahns.”
24 November 2023
Ryan Smith, Chairman of Smith Entertainment Group (SEG) dribbles the Utah Jazz—long an outlier in the NBA—into the spotlight.
Utah Jazz Streaming Service Is a Test for NBA, NHL Post-RSN Model
He’s still the executive chairman of Qualtrics but has lately turned his attention to sports. Smith bought a majority stake in the Utah Jazz in 2020, professional soccer’s Real Salt Lake in 2022 and completed the hockey team deal this year.
Now Smith has received permission to build as high as 600 feet (183 meters) in downtown Salt Lake City. A structure of that height would give him by far the state’s tallest building — the current titleholder, an apartment building called Astra Tower, stands at about 450 feet.
Salt Lake City’s planning commission is skeptical of the billionaire’s proposal, recommending unanimously that the City Council reject a rezoning plan in June. The council approved the proposal anyway, and Smith’s group asked that the planning commission be kept out of future proposals in favor of a staff level review. The City Council denied that request.
Scheer said she opposed the rezoning plan because SEG’s proposal was light on details. And while she’s not opposed to tall buildings, Scheer said, Smith’s group has so much land to build on that there isn’t a clear reason to make something taller.
“It’s not like it’s a real tight squeeze,” she said. “What’s gonna happen? We don’t know.”
Much of the public upset over Smith’s plans has centered on the fate of Abravanel Hall, which opened in 1979 and is home to the Utah Symphony. A change.org petition to “Save Abravanel Hall” has garnered more than 50,000 signatures since May. Last week, Mike Maughan, an executive at SEG, told a legislative committee that their goal is “preserving Abravanel Hall as is.”
If his plans don’t work out in Salt Lake City, Smith could move everything to the suburbs. In April, he told Bloomberg News that he’d simply build a new arena on land he already owns. Both of his family’s professional soccer teams play in a stadium in Sandy, a town about 19 miles south of Salt Lake City and closer to where Smith lives in Provo.
“It would be a lot easier for us,” Smith told KLS News in July. “However, it’s part of that mission of Utah. It’s part of the arts, it’s part of entertainment. It’s the right thing to do for our state.”
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