Leaders of the Utah Sports Authority aren't going to spend $800,000 to acquire part of the land near the University of Utah needed for a speed-skating facility after all.
But even though the property was needed to provide parking spaces, the sports authority still intends to build the speed skating oval on Guardsman Way despite continued opposition from nearby residents."We're not abandoning that site," said Randy Dryer, a member of the sports authority's executive committee. "We're still committed to building a speed skating oval and the preferable site is still up by the university."
Most of the land needed for the project came from Salt Lake City. However, property owned by the federal government and the U. still must be acquired by the sports authority.
Dryer said Monday the executive committee, which also includes sports authority chairman Ian Cumming and vice chairman Scott Nelson, decided last week not to continue pursuing the Forest Service property.
"It was all very iffy and we just decided it was best to tell the Forest Service we should quittrying to push this round peg into a square hole," Dryer said.
The federal Bureau of Land Management holds the title to the 5 1/2-acre parcel on Guardsman Way. The U.S. Forest Service had planned to build a new office building there but was willing to relocate.
Before Salt Lake City lost the 1998 Winter Games to Nagano, Japan, last June, the sports authority had agreed to reimburse the Forest Service up to $800,000 in relocation expenses. The money has been tied up pending acquiring the title from the BLM.
Dryer said the last straw was learning that the sports authority would not be able to obtain the title without paying for an environmental impact statement, at a cost estimated at $100,000.
He said that problem, combined with the uncertainty of when the oval will be built now that the city's agreement with the U.S. Olympic Committee to build winter sports facilities is being renegotiated, led to dropping the offer.
Dryer said the new agreement for training and competition facilities, expected to be finished in time for a USOC meeting in October, will likely include the speed skating oval.
"I do not think the oval will be left out of the plan," he said, rejecting talk by some participants in the negotiations that an oval won't be part of the agreement. "How soon it's built is an open issue."