MIDA's Grand Hyatt

Tax dollars for private ski lifts.....😡

How we got MIDA, and its sales pitch at the time. In the mid-1990s, Base Realignment and Closure reviews put Hill on the possible-closure list. Hill was northern Utah’s biggest employer, and the buildings were old. Congress was not going to pay for new ones. In 2002, federal Enhanced Use Lease law let bases lease underused land to private developers if the deal produced a benefit back to the military. Hill identified roughly 500 acres on its west edge for an aerospace park. That land sat in two counties and four cities, so no single city could zone it, tax it, or negotiate the leases. The 2007 bill, SB 232 (Sen. Sheldon Killpack, Rep. Brad Dee), created MIDA as that single authority. The public case was narrow: coordinate land use and financing on military land, build Falcon Hill, send infrastructure and revenue back to the base, and make Hill harder to close. The first board was five members appointed by the governor and legislative leadership. Falcon Hill is the part that still matches that sale. Development there has funded base projects, including replacement of World War II-era buildings. The statute was already a bit wider than the speech. It authorized development inside a “project area” tied to military land, not only construction on the base itself. Later legislatures kept widening it. The Wasatch County project is the clearest break. Hill once had a small recreation lodge at Snowbasin, about a dozen beds. It was closed before the 2002 Olympics, and Congress gave the Air Force a Park City parcel for a replacement that was never built. MIDA was asked to find another site. A roughly 40-acre parcel approved around 2011 for a military recreation hotel is now several thousand acres of Deer Valley’s East Village, the Grand Hyatt, lifts, and snowmaking. The military piece that remains is real but small: 100 discounted rooms at the Grand Hyatt and a secure room for classified meetings. Up to 75 percent of new property-tax growth in the area can be captured for as long as 40 years. That tax-increment and resort-tax machinery was added in later bills, mostly sponsored by Sen. Jerry Stevenson, not in the 2007 act. The 2026 Stratos data-center fight is the other stretch. MIDA’s defense is that revenue can be sent back to military infrastructure. Rep. Jason Thompson’s counter is that this is economic development with a military checkbox, and he has been drafting a bill to keep projects within about five miles of an installation and require a direct military purpose. So Falcon Hill stayed close to the original deal. The East Village resort and the data-center use did not. Those came from later statutes and from treating any project area that includes some military land as fair game, even when the private development dwarfs the military benefit.

Thank you, Jen, for exposing all of this. It’s totally corrupt and taking advantage of citizens!!!

It is an absolute scar upon the land.

This playbook has been executed so frequently and with such success that lawmakers had little problem fast tracking a similar financing structure for $Billions to “revitalize” downtown SLC. It sounds defensible until you realize the opportunity costs and beneficiaries. 1/2

Sounds like citizens own the risk !

If they give all the residents a free season pass every year then maybe we would let it sly.

MIDA another GOP shakedown

@NormieUtah It’s got a tunnel too. 😃

This is repulsive but common with the states dumocrat leadership impersonating as a conservative to get elected then sticking it to citizens.

Great research! Thank you for sharing this. Keep it up

What are they doing with the children in the caves they own and in the headquarters the basement go ask them if you're a real reporter investigate it's going to be revealed

Leave it to our outstanding Utah governor and minions for caring about the Utah citizens over power and money…..Not!! 🤬

Do you support amendment B?

Incredible video. You have my support.

Slay queen!!! It’s all a racket!

Why is that area w a view of us 40?

“MIDA’s Grand Hyatt” sounds less like a hotel caption and more like a reminder that somebody should explain who owns it, who financed it, and who benefits.

great work and i support you. i find this tricky though. what's the alternative? i get the "not my tax money!" but gov't spends your tax money on dumb shit you don't want all of the time. In this area, real estate value will skyrocket if resort is successful eclipsing the tax

Appreciate the info. But this is the last of Utah's worries. These will support US troop Morale, Welfare and Recreation. People forget the vast majority of military personnel are young enlisted who make virtually nothing. I'm sure Utahns can sacrifice a little for our boys.