SB 333: Major Sporting Event Venue Financing Amendments - Utah

Introduced → Substitute #1 · 9 edits

MAJOR

The substitute bill makes several significant policy changes: it removes all affordable housing provisions, tightens the definition of a major sporting event venue (requiring 500 acres minimum and excluding professional sports league home venues), shifts from capturing state to local sales and use tax increment, adds a sales tax exemption for construction materials used in venue projects, increases the revenue share available to creating entities from 50% to up to 100%, and caps property tax increment collection at three triggering periods.

SCOPE

All affordable housing provisions were removed throughout the bill, including the definition of 'affordable housing,' the separate private-public partnership section for affordable housing (former Section 11-71-302), references to affordable housing in allowable uses, and the objective of developing affordable housing near a venue.

The bill adds a special effective date clause, which was not present in the introduced version, indicating the legislation will take effect on a specific date rather than the default.

ELIGIBILITY

The minimum size requirement for a major sporting event venue was increased from 50 acres to 500 acres, and a new exclusion was added: the venue cannot be used primarily as the home location for a professional sports league franchise. This significantly narrows which venues qualify.

FISCAL

The bill now captures 'local sales and use tax increment' instead of 'sales and use tax increment' (which referenced state revenue). The distribution provision was changed from 50% to 'up to 100%' of each dollar collected within the sales and use tax boundary going to the creating entity.

A new sales and use tax exemption was added for construction materials used in the construction, remodeling, or refurbishing of a major sporting event venue within an approved zone (new Section 59-12-104(98)). A corresponding distribution mechanism was added to ensure exempted construction material revenue still flows to the zone.

Counties of the third class that impose a resort communities tax must now use the revenue only for public infrastructure and improvements, including transportation, related to a major sporting event venue in the county. This restricts how those counties can spend the tax revenue.

REQUIREMENT

A new limit was added: a proposal may not trigger more than three property tax increment collection periods for the qualified development zone, capping how many times the base year can be reset.

DEFINITION

The concept of 'primary project area' was largely eliminated and replaced with references to the 'major sporting event venue zone' or 'qualified development zone.' The 'impacted primary area' is now defined as land outside the major sporting event venue zone (rather than outside the primary project area) within one mile of its boundary.

The 'base taxable value' definition was changed from a fixed date ('as of January 1 of the year in which a committee approves') to a rolling calculation ('as shown upon the assessment roll last equalized during the property tax base year'), and a new 'property tax base year' term was introduced.

Substitute #5 → Enrolled · 9 edits · Mar 27, 2025

MAJOR

This bill enacts the Major Sporting Event Venue Zone Act to allow municipalities and counties to create special zones around large sports venues (costing over $100 million) to capture property and sales tax increments for redevelopment. It establishes a new committee to approve these zones, authorizes the creation of specific taxes within the zones, and mandates that construction materials used to build or remodel these venues be exempt from sales tax. The act also clarifies how tax revenue can be used for public infrastructure and private-public partnerships.

Scope change

Newly created scope for municipalities and counties to establish 'Major Sporting Event Venue Zones' around venues costing over $100 million, expanding the ability to fund redevelopment through captured tax increments and specific venue taxes.

SCOPE

Establishes a new 'Major Sporting Event Venue Zone' framework allowing local governments to capture property tax increments and local sales/use tax increments within defined zones around major venues.

ELIGIBILITY

Defines a 'Major Sporting Event Venue' as a facility with expected construction costs exceeding $100 million, including those hosting international competitions or professional events.

FISCAL

Authorizes creating entities to impose new taxes, including a transient room tax, resort communities sales and use tax, and additional resort communities sales and use tax, within the zone boundaries.

Allows counties of the third class with three or more major venues to implement resort taxes in unincorporated areas for public infrastructure and transit projects.

DEFINITION

Creates new definitions for 'Creating entity', 'Fiscal agent', 'Impacted primary area', 'Qualified development zone', and 'Secondary project area' to govern the zone's administration and boundaries.

REQUIREMENT

Mandates the formation of a 'Major Sporting Event Venue Zone Committee' with specific members (including the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity) to review and approve zone proposals.

Requires creating entities to submit proposals to the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity and hold public meetings before seeking committee approval.

EXEMPTIONS

Provides a sales and use tax exemption for construction materials used to construct, remodel, or refurbish a major sporting event venue within an approved zone.

TIMELINE

Sets specific effective dates for new tax authorities, with certain taxes becoming available for imposition starting October 1, 2025.

Substitute #4 → Substitute #5 · 1 edit

MINOR

The bill text was reformatted from a dense, unformatted version to a properly structured legislative substitute with clear section headers, bullet points, and page breaks. The substantive policy content regarding major sporting event venue zones remains unchanged.

TECHNICAL

Text was reformatted from a compact, unformatted layout to a standard legislative document structure with proper section numbering, indentation, and page breaks.

Substitute #3 → Substitute #4 · 4 edits

MODERATE

This bill replaces the previous version with a new substitute that refines the Major Sporting Event Venue Zone Act. The changes primarily involve formatting corrections, updating the list of affected Utah Code sections with more accurate chapter references, and ensuring consistent terminology throughout the bill text. The substantive policy provisions regarding venue zones, tax increments, and funding mechanisms remain unchanged from the earlier version.

Scope change

No substantive change to the bill's scope or applicability; the changes are primarily editorial and formatting improvements to the legislative text.

TECHNICAL

Updated the list of Utah Code sections affected to include more specific chapter numbers and corrected formatting inconsistencies in the 'Utah Code Sections Affected' section.

Reformatted the bill text to use consistent indentation, bullet points, and spacing throughout the highlighted provisions and section headers.

Corrected minor typographical errors and inconsistent capitalization in section titles and definitions.

Removed redundant or improperly formatted lines that appeared in the previous version's text representation.

Substitute #2 → Substitute #3 · 3 edits

MINOR

This bill substitutes a new version of SB 333 that establishes the Major Sporting Event Venue Zone Act, allowing municipalities and counties to create zones around major sporting venues to capture property tax and sales tax increments. The changes update the House sponsor, adjust formatting and line numbering, and maintain the core provisions for funding major sporting event venues through tax increments and optional resort taxes.

Scope change

The bill's scope remains focused on creating major sporting event venue zones, but the House Sponsor changed from 'LONG TITLE' to 'Jon Hawkins', and the formatting was updated to reflect a new substitute version.

TECHNICAL

Updated the House Sponsor from 'LONG TITLE' to 'Jon Hawkins' and changed the document header to reflect '3rd Sub.'

Reformatted line numbering and spacing to match the new substitute version format

Added new header text indicating this is the '3rd Sub.' version of the bill

Substitute #1 → Substitute #2 · 7 edits

MODERATE

The bill introduces a new Major Sporting Event Venue Zone Act to capture property tax and sales tax increments around major venues, authorizes counties to levy additional taxes within these zones, and provides tax exemptions for construction materials used to build or refurbish these venues. It also establishes a committee review process for zone proposals and clarifies definitions for major sporting event venues.

Scope change

The bill expands the scope of tax increment capture to include major sporting event venues and adds new tax authorization for counties within designated zones.

SCOPE

Establishes a new Major Sporting Event Venue Zone Act to capture property tax increment and local sales and use tax increment within defined areas around major sporting event venues.

ELIGIBILITY

Allows counties of the third class with three or more major sporting event venues to implement resort communities taxes similar to eligible municipalities.

FISCAL

Authorizes creating entities to utilize zone funds for bonding, public infrastructure, and entering into agreements to own, lease, or operate major sporting event venues.

DEFINITION

Defines 'major sporting event venue' to include Olympic venues and international/professional sports facilities with expected expenditures exceeding $100 million and at least 500 acres in size.

REQUIREMENT

Requires municipalities or counties to submit zone proposals to the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity for feasibility analysis and committee review.

EXEMPTIONS

Provides sales and use tax exemptions for construction materials used for remodeling or refurbishing major sporting event venues within approved zones.

TIMELINE

Sets specific effective dates for various tax authorities, including January 1, 2026 for county energy taxes and October 1, 2024 for fairpark district taxes.

Major Sporting Event Venue Financing Amendments

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