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- Black Desert Resort has canceled plans for a $2 billion arena project for now.
- The resort will host the LPGA Tour in spring and build a water park.
- Efforts to work with local residents include donating land and maintaining public trails.
IVINS, Washington County — Black Desert Resort has scrapped its idea to build an arena, but construction continues for a water park and in preparation for the LPGA Tour in the spring.
The resort had planned to build a $2 billion arena to host minor league hockey and Utah Jazz games, with plans for a state legislator to sponsor exploratory legislation for the project in the upcoming session.
But Patrick Manning, the resort's managing partner, told KSL.com that the idea is dead — for now.
"The arena was nothing more than one of 20 things we may do in the future," Manning said. "So we were doing some exploratory things with the Legislature, but we are not going to do that in this next session. There's too much happening."
"We've never spoken to an architect," he added. "So it was really just one of those things we threw against the wall to see what may come of it."
There is, however, a lot of construction and big projects ahead for the largest resort in southern Utah.
Construction on the resort's water park will begin in the summer, Manning confirmed. Once that's completed — in approximately a year and a half — construction will begin on a boardwalk concept with nine restaurants and 80,000 square feet of retail space.
More immediately, Black Desert is preparing to host the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour from April 28 through May 4.
"I've been so excited about having the women come to Black Desert," Manning said. "They don't get quite the same treatment as the men, so I was super excited to be able to host them so that we can show them all the love that the men get — which they obviously deserve."
Black Desert is showing that love by partnering with Sky West Airlines to fly all of the LPGA competitors and a guest in a private jet from the previous leg of the tour in Houston to the St. George Regional Airport.
By the time the tour begins, the resort is planning to double its available rooms from the 200 available when Black Desert hosted the PGA tour in October, Manning said.
Preparing for the tour also involves building temporary structures, like bleachers and cabana suites. While it would make more financial sense to build permanent structures, Manning noted the resort does not want to obstruct views of the resort's lava rock for locals.
The resort's consideration for residents has been notable, Ivins Mayor Chris Hart told KSL.com.
"Honestly, if you've driven into town during the week of the PGA Tour event here, you wouldn't even have known that's going on unless you looked across the golf course and saw the grandstands," Hart said. "They managed traffic just in an amazing way."
"I expected to be flooded with emails from residents of the city complaining about different things associated with the PGA Tour," Hart added. "I didn't receive one. To my knowledge, nobody in the city did. ... So we don't anticipate there being any issues with the LPGA event."
Black Desert Resort and Ivins locals have come a long way since the project's inception. Originally, Black Desert was the subject of a lawsuit filed against the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration by Ivins residents who were upset over the sale and rezoning of the land and lava rock flows on it, according to a Cedar City News article.
Asked what made the difference, Manning said, "I started working on this project 20 years ago, so I got to know so many of the residents in so many living rooms and talked about plans and actually made changes to our plan before we ever even went to the cities ... so, we do have a lot of support from the local residents, which is amazing because this is a huge project in their small town."
As a show of goodwill, the resort donated 200 acres of lava flow property back to the city and agreed to maintain public trails and a nature center, Manning said. "One thing that's super important to me is that people feel like this is their resort. It's their PGA tournament, not those developers."
Correction: The lawsuit was against SITLA for land management, and Black Desert wasn't a party in the lawsuit.
