Following a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Tuesday, the WSP held a grand opening for the public featuring mascots from several Northern Utah universities and sports franchises, Cosmo and the BYU Dunk Team, members of LOVB Salt Lake, Weber State University basketball players and former Utah Jazz player Ronnie Price.

Jessica Merrill, tourism director for Davis County, told the Standard-Examiner on Wednesday that the WSP is a one-of-a-kind facility for the state.

“Western Sports Park is a sports tourism facility,” she said. “It was built with tourism dollars — tax revenue that was brought in to help generate more economic impact for our area. We’re excited to host large regional and national tournaments here. Obviously, also, our local youth will also be using this as part of some of those activities. It’s a multiuse venue but with a sports-heavy focus as we look to capitalize on economic impact in our community.”

She said the Western Sports Park had its beginning as a horse arena — the Legacy Events Center — which was built for the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“During the Olympics, they were having a cultural event that was around rodeo,” she said. “That is, obviously, no longer part of the games. … For sustainability and return-on-investment, we were able to use some of our tourism tax revenue that we get from hotel stays and restaurants to expand and update this facility to be more impactful and be able to host a lot more groups from outside the area to come in, stay in our beautiful area; and hopefully, they’re out supporting our local businesses as well.”

The original horse arena has been heavily upgraded and integrated into the new facility as one of the two arenas on site. Construction began on the Western Sports Park in 2020. There is 120,000-square-feet of arena space with the main arena sporting upwards of nine basketball courts and volleyball courts to high school standards. The former horse arena has 45,000-square-feet of space and is meant to be versatile in its use, from sports to trade shows. The facility also includes locker rooms, office and meeting space for rent and a concession store.

According to a press release on the WSP’s amenities, these stretch well outside of the new building’s walls.

“WSP, located between the Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Mountains, spans 55 acres and redefines Utah’s sports and events scene,” the release said. “Of that space, 17 acres are dedicated to outdoor fields, including six full-sized layouts for soccer, lacrosse, rugby, ultimate disc, and more, anchored by a championship field with seating for 2,000 spectators.”

Merrill said the facility is distinct from a general-use parks & rec facility.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“This is very unique because it was built for more of your tourism-specific activities and groups that we’re trying to bring in,” she said. “We are lucky that we are not a parks and rec department, so we don’t have daily scheduling and programs; this is more of a for-rent facility that people can come in and host their events here. We’re not putting on anything; it’s more the people can rent this space.”

Davis County Commissioner Bob Stevenson told the Standard-Examiner the benefits of the new facility go beyond economic impact.

“Any of us who have had young children participate in youth sports know we’ve had to travel with our kids to areas outside of Davis County — sometimes a long ways from Davis County,” he said. “This basically opens itself for a lot of the youth sports to be able to come right here into Davis County, and it’s close to home. And that’s not just here in Davis County, but Weber, Cache, Morgan and even into Salt Lake counties.”

He said that the facility is already making an impression on people and urged the public to come check it out as they can.

“This is a beautiful area and how they’ve put this together is absolutely amazing,” he said. “We had some people from the Salt Lake Olympics (Tuesday) and they were very impressed with this facility. I would suggest to anybody, if you haven’t been in this, try to be able to get over here and sneak a peek of this facility. There’s nothing like it in Utah; and actually, I think there are very few places like this in the western United States.”

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

Price told the Standard-Examiner he had a great first impression of the WSP.

“It’s definitely needed and it’s a well-put together facility and it’s going to bring a lot of fun and a lot of joy to youth from a youth sports standpoint,” he said.

He said that he hasn’t seen anything quite like it.

“This is very unique,” he said. “I’ve been in a lot of different facilities across the country and I’ve been able to see some of the brand-new ones in other states. This is definitely at the top, for sure. I haven’t seen anything quite like this in Utah, for sure.”

Price said being able to hold a full tournament in a single location will be one of the most useful attributes of the new facility.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“Having kids that play a lot of travel sports, I know that getting facilities to support certain events is very hard,” he said. “You have to play at multiple high schools or junior highs all over the city. But to have a one-stop shop where you can host a tournament in one location versus a number of different locations for one particular tournament, I think it’s great.”

Merrill said hopes are that the Western Sports Park adds a lot to the local sports culture.

“We hope that it really helps some of our traveling teams and parents that are living here not have to travel so far away for all of the different events and tournaments they go to,” she said. “Obviously, this is a benefit to the community, not only to bringing in economic impact to our area from these groups that we’re bringing in, but also it’s a space for local groups to have a part of as well.”

For more information, visit https://westernsportspark.com/.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner