Smith Entertainment Group (SEG) is consolidating its teams and business division in a new campus being built in Sandy, Utah. The 111-acre former shopping mall site acquired by SEG in 2024 will include a practice facility for the Jazz and SEG business office, joining the Mammoth’s practice facility, which opened there in September.
SEG held an official groundbreaking for the Jazz facility on Tuesday. It will feature premier resources, including two basketball courts, a team locker room, workout and training spaces, a performance kitchen and amenities designed to foster player development and team connectivity. Perhaps most striking are the views of the nearby Wasatch Mountains that will be incorporated into the facility’s design — floor to ceiling windows in the basketball gym, for example — and be a positive influence on the organization’s collective mental health.
“It’s such an amazing front porch for this facility, on purpose,” said SEG owner Ryan Smith. “The chance to put them together, have our offices together, and to really be right there with that epic mountain view right in front of you is something I think is good for the soul of everyone.”
The project involves a mix of demolition and new construction as well as repurposing existing mall space for the Jazz. There isn’t a timetable for when the NBA team’s training hub will open but Smith said SEG will “move pretty quickly and it will be less than two years.” SEG’s investment hasn’t been disclosed.
The Jazz have trained near downtown Salt Lake City at Zion’s Bank Basketball Campus since 2003; previous owner Larry Miller renovated that for $20M in 2017. Babcock Design, Okland Construction, and Ezra Lee Design + Build (interiors) are designing and building the facility in Sandy, which SEG hopes will become a magnet for other sports entities and content in Salt Lake City’s southern suburbs.
“It’s amazing the amount of brands who have already approached us, wanting to come and be around us and we definitely want to create this sports campus,” Smith said. “And if you start with those two assets,” the Mammoth and Jazz training facilities, “it’s pretty incredible.”
The SEG HQ will sit right off Interstate 15 in Sandy, a suburb 18 miles south of where the Jazz and Mammoth play at the Delta Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
“What we’re doing downtown is super special around the arena and this also provides something for all of Utah as well,” Smith said, citing the incorporation of youth hockey into the Mammoth facility. “Instead of having these facilities tucked away where no one sees them, these are out in the open where the public goes.”
SEG has heavily focused on facilities and real estate since acquiring the Jazz in 2020 and the Mammoth in summer 2024. It’s spending $525M renovating Delta Center, in part to make it capable of hosting hockey, and creating a mixed-use district around the arena that will include a music venue in partnership with Live Nation. Bringing the two teams and the parent company together in one place is just the next step.
“You need a space to be able to provide an experience you want with the teams, and anytime we can use the physical location or facilities to provide a better experience for our fans or for the teams, it’s kind of part of it,” said Smith. “When we took over the team, that wasn’t at the forefront of what we were thinking about doing but we knew there was probably a real estate component of that.”
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