A sports and entertainment district in Sandy? Real Salt Lake’s new owners are making plans. (2025)

A potential development project has early interest from Sandy Mayor Monica Zoltanski.

Sandy • Is another Utah sports and entertainment district on the way?

The Larry H. Miller Co. — as of Friday, new owners of Real Salt Lake and the Utah Royals — plans to further develop the area around the team’s stadium in Sandy with more restaurants and other entertainment options for the team’s fans.

While large-scale plans are still to be determined, the Miller group hopes to expand amenities on both sides of America First Field, “improving the game day experience” for fans, CEO Steve Starks said.

Sandy officials are open to the project, even in its early stages. Sandy Mayor Monica Zoltanski said an entertainment district would pair nicely with the Smith Entertainment Group’s new NHL practice facility, which opens in September at The Shops at South Town.

“You can’t deny Sandy’s becoming quite a sports city. I mean, between the NHL hockey [practice facility] and the soccer stadium, we are perfectly positioned to create a sports entertainment district,” she told The Salt Lake Tribune.

While Zoltanski cautioned she hasn’t seen any hard plans, she believes Sandy has the population and draw to support such a project.

“Haven’t seen any developments, but obviously we would be happy with the vision. We would welcome it and are ready for it,” she said. “Sandy is grown up. Sports are a big part of our future.”

The financial scale of the project is unclear at this point, as is whether Sandy would be asked to provide any funding.

In the wake of Friday’s purchase, the Miller group now owns land on both sides of State Street near 9400 South: America First Field on the west and the 22-acre Jordan Commons development to the east, where LHM’s headquarters and a few restaurants already operate.

The plan, then, is to connect the two more substantially and develop the area. LHM is already pursuing a similar sports and entertainment district in Daybreak, connecting the recently built Ballpark at America First Square with a new Megaplex theater complex near a TRAX station.

The Millers are also developing a third sports and entertainment district along North Temple in Salt Lake City. LHM hopes the Power District will one day be home to a Major League Baseball team, and the Utah Legislature has earmarked $900 million in public funding for the future stadium.

“Experience is really important in sports now. It’s not just about what takes place on the field — that’s first and foremost — but it’s also about where you can eat before the game,” Starks said. “It’s where you can park, the ease of the experience, the other amenities that will be added.”

A TRAX station sits adjacent to Jordan Commons as well; Starks pointed to that as another reason why the area could support an entertainment district.

“People can get here through mass transit. There will be more parking. We’ll provide restaurant options and other amenities,” Starks said. “What people don’t understand is that you have our theater that brings in millions of people a year across the street. We have this stadium that brings in a million people a year. Then you also have the South Town Expo, Mountain America Expo Center, and you’re bringing in hundreds of thousands of people a year there.”

The development would overlap with “The Cairns,” a Sandy city project map for developing the suburb’s center from 9000 South to 10600 South, between Interstate 15 and the TRAX line.

The Miller family weighed building a new stadium elsewhere, but chose to keep America First Field — built in 2008 — as the anchor of the entertainment district.

“We don’t think it would be good stewardship to knock this stadium down or try to go build a new one,” Starks said. “This is a really strong stadium, the bones are good. We said that about the Delta Center in 2017, but it’s true here as well.”

There was speculation that RSL could be forced to build a new stadium if Major League Soccer chooses to move to a winter calendar to better align with leagues around the world, as the MLS Board of Governors discussed earlier this month. Given Utah’s cold winters, some might hope a soccer stadium would utilize a dome or roof component.

But Starks said there are ways around that. The Millers can renovate America First Field with heating under the field to keep the playing surface playable even in the winter months, he said.

“We can install infrastructure to keep the grass green year-round,” Starks said. “(MLS) studied it, and they think it would impact two games for us. So two games would be in colder weather. They can mitigate it to two games, so that we can keep the turf in good condition.”

And now the work begins on nailing down the details of a future entertainment district.

“The Millers will look at a master plan working with the city of Sandy,” RSL President John Kimball said. “There are really exciting things that we can do.”