Real Vineyardfi

It could happen.

When the Salt Lake County Council declined to fund a stadium in Sandy for the Real Salt Lake soccer team, Anderson Development put up land on the former Geneva Steel site as a new home for Utah's only professional soccer team.

Anderson has even offered to purchase Real (pronounced Ray-Al) Salt Lake to prevent owner Dave Checketts from moving the team out of state. The team has been playing at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, and Checketts had hoped to have a permanent home by 2008. He has said he would put the team in Missouri if he cannot find a suitable home in Utah.

We think Anderson's proposal is worth serious consideration by both Checketts and local government. The company contemplates a mixed-use development that would have commercial, residential and retail components. A soccer stadium would be a good fit with that plan.

Geneva's land does not lend itself to single-family housing, and a stadium is an effective way to rehabilitate blighted land, as shown by New Jersey's Meadowlands sports complex.

Geneva Steel's location was never a good one. World War II was raging and the country needed steel. The plant was placed inland so it would could not be hit by carrier-based Japanese bombers. It provided local jobs for decades until the cost of shipping raw materials got to be too much.

But the site would be terrific for a Utah-based athletic team. There is easy access to Interstate 15, and the commuter rail service envisioned for the future would run right beside a sports facility.

There also is growing interest in soccer among Utahns. In a state that treats college football as an unofficial religion, Real Salt Lake in the past year has attracted an average of 15,000 fans a game. It's about a third of Rice-Eccles Stadium's capacity, but nearly quaduple the roughly 4,000 who attended Utah Blitzz soccer games two years ago.

More than 30,000 Utahns play soccer in youth and amateur leagues, and many of them will likely have an interest in the pros. And because soccer is the No. 1 spectator sport worldwide, soccer fever will spread as more immigrants move in.

Vineyard stands to reap significant financial rewards. Real soccer means real money. When 10,000 people come to town to watch a game, they will spend a lot of money. For a city that once depended on Geneva Steel to balance the budget, professional soccer could be a sweet bonus.

Could I-15 and Geneva Road handle the traffic loadfi Not today, but significant improvements are contemplated for the future. We don't see that as a roadblock. A plan to build a stadium could actually help get highway solutions going -- including a mass transit system connecting Utah Valley with Salt Lake City.

A soccer stadium would have an unavoidable effect on the face of Vineyard. The city's residents have prided themselves on maintaining a bucolic atmosphere along the ever more urbanized Wasatch Front. But it professional soccer came and proved successful, it would encourage additional growth in Vineyard and perhaps take the community in a different direction.

But of course things will go like that whether soccer comes or not. Vineyard's days as a farming community are numbered. The old Geneva Steel site is prime turf for a variety of uses, and developers are already training their sights on the wide open spaces. We expect the farms will gradually get picked off, just as they have in other places.

Professional soccer sounds like a terrific option for putting Geneva's land to good use and spurring the local economy. Now if only more people understood the game.

* * *

What do you thinkfi

Should Real Salt Lake come to Utah Countyfi Send your comments to dhpolls@heraldextra.com or call 344-2942. Please leave your name, hometown and phone number with your comments. E-mail comments should not exceed 100 words; voice-mail comments should be no longer than 30 seconds. Anonymous and unverifiable responses will not be published.

The Daily Herald will publish comments on July 30.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A6.