This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The grandiose vision of invigorating the Utah State Fairpark will not come to fruition for Dell Loy Hansen. On Wednesday afternoon, the RSL owner announced that he'd rescinded his January offer to build an 8,000-seat minor-league stadium near downtown Salt Lake City — and spend up to $23 million of his own money doing so.

The Tribune spoke with Hansen about the decision to pull out of the deal and start looking elsewhere for the future home of USL club Real Monarchs. Below is a brief transcription of what Hansen had to say on the falling out.

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On the decision to move on from the Fairpark …

Hansen: "Our goal was to motivate a renovation of the overall Fairpark: Rodeo arena, agriculture, concessions, arts and crafts, public use and the overall Fair. In our early discussions with Mike Steele, we felt that if we passed on the $10 million bonding authority they had and we funded this ourselves that that would give both the legislature and the government more resources to do an overall renovation of the Fairpark, so we were hoping that our gift would motivate a real commitment to build a world-class Fair in a 100-year-old institution. As the debate has progressed, it really does not evolve to where we believe that the Fairpark would arrive at a quality level that would entice us to invest $23 million into building a building that may or may not have the areas around it funded to a level that builds an adequate neighborhood to that in. We spent a long time listening carefully to the legislature and those that are debating it and have found that we need to move forward and to not tie up people's time, we made the decision here to step back and pursue other opportunities as they may develop."

On whether or not he was surprised that the Fairpark hit a roadblock once it was moved to the hill …

Hansen: "I think that the state has done a good job weighing their priorities. I'll give the legislature, the governor and everyone credit that we have infinite needs and limited money. I told everyone that I believed a wise governor, house and senate would find a way the best way to spend a limited amount of money that we give to government to build our communities. I really do believe that it's had a fair hearing. The importance, relative to other important items in our community, probably isn't as high as we would need it to be to make the investment in this location. We wanted to not lead the legislature astray or the Fairpark board in their deliberations that we would not be going forward, so we wanted to make sure our understanding was clear during the legislative session, so the legislature and governor could govern themselves accordingly if they needed to adjust their calculus on what the Fair needs. We hope that this is being fair to all parties and it lets Real Salt Lake pursue other options that may be substantially better than this situation."

On what's next for the potential minor-league stadium and home of the Monarchs …

Hansen: "There's numerous opportunities that we think could be explored and we've started down some of those paths. We didn't want to go down them to any profound level until we clearly understood what was going on with the legislature, but we do believe they'll be plenty of opportunities to put a minor-league stadium here in the state and we look forward to exploring those [options] further and then coming back and exploring those further and then coming back and explaining what we think those possibilities are. Right now that would be preliminary."

On if there's a timeline for the next move …

Hansen: "Through the process, even when we were at the State Fairpark six months ago, a number of opportunities have been presented throughout the West. It was not just simply Salt Lake, there's been numerous opportunities. Obviously as people heard some of the discussions with the Fair board, the phone rang a few times and we're looking to explore some of those opportunities also. There's no question the public debate brought other people that we had put further back into the discussion and we now want to fully explore those discussions."

On if he's partial to staying in state or looking outside of Utah …

Hansen: "We would prefer to keep it in state because of the confluence of the two teams and Utah has such a large soccer following, we're not the eighth-best soccer state in the nation. We believe that the soccer appetite is bigger than just Rio Tinto Stadium and RSL, and in building a first-class team and organization, we need the integration and the closer the coaches are to work together, we think the better the integration will be."

On the disappointment of the Fairpark pitch not working out …

Hansen: "This was my idea of a way to motivate a need for Real and the northwest quadrant of Salt Lake and the Fair, so we were looking for three wins: We think that a good share of that patronage could come from that area, we think North Temple is being built up in a nice way and we wanted to be part of the North Temple Renaissance, we wanted the Fair to get to a better place, so it was fairly altruistic, our idea, but we know the state's budget is tight and we had some good economic successes in our business organizations and we thought it would be a great gift to the state. But at the same time, they're competing with other priorities, children's health, we've got to fund a new prison, we've got colleges, education, I don't envy the task that the governor and legislature [have] to meet all these competing priorities with the right answer. I think it's very, very difficult. So we aren't in the process, but we think it's been a fair process. We think that people have heard the case and have had enough information to know what they're deciding. And with that, I think there probably has not been in our mind enough emphasis on the Fair to motivate us to move forward ... not all good ideas come to fruition and that's part of life. We thought it was a good idea, but just because we thought it was a good idea doesn't mean it has to happen. There's no bitterness, there's no anger, there's no resentment, it's just part of the process of deciding our civic priorities, is how I see it."

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-Chris Kamrani

Twitter: @chriskamrani