Settlement opens door for motorsports park sale

By John Rogers

Tooele County has announced a settlement of ongoing litigation that had prevented the sale of the  former Miller Motorsports Park to a Chinese automobile manufacturer. The 15-month legal battle ended with the county agreeing to a $1.55 million payout to Center Point Management.

The Utah Motorsports Campus is an auto, motorcycle, bicycle and kart racing facility located in the unincorporated rural Erda area just outside of Tooele.

In early summer 2015, the Larry H. Miller Group — which built and operated what was originally known as Miller Motorsports Park — announced that it would not be renewing its lease on the 500-acre tract owned by Tooele County on which the $200 million installation sat. The move effectively transferred ownership of the racing facility and all of its infrastructure to Tooele County.

Tooele County had no interest in running the park but recognized its economic value to the area. The county immediately asked for proposals from potential buyers to own and continue operating the track as a motorsports facility. In August 2015, the county announced that it had reached an agreement with Mitime Investment & Development Group to sell the park for $20 million. Mitime is a subsidiary of the Geely Group of Companies, which is the largest independent automobile manufacturer in China and also owns Volvo and several Chinese racetracks. Mitime said it planned to continue and expand motorsports operations at the racetrack, use it to train personnel in track operations and motorsports engineering and as a base to build racing vehicles. Mitime also pledged to promote Utah as a tourism destination to the Chinese. Mitime estimated that its planned $270 million investment in Utah Motorsports Campus would bring $1 billion in economic impact to Utah over 25 years.

{mprestriction ids="1,3"}Enter Andrew Cartwright and his Center Point Management. Cartwright immediately sued to stop the sale on the grounds that Tooele County accepted a lower bid from Mitime instead of Center Point’s higher bid. Cartwright’s suit claimed the action was a violation of Tooele County ordinances and Utah state law. In December 2016, 3rd District Judge Robert Adkins agreed with Center Point and blocked the sale.

Center Point, a Wyoming-based real estate development company, said at the time that it planned to invest about $140 million to keep the track in operation while constructing condos, homes and an office building at the site. 

With the sale to Mitime in limbo because of the lawsuit, Tooele County hired a newly formed subsidiary of Mitime, Utah Motorsports Campus Inc., to operate the park in order to preserve its value until the litigation ended and it could be sold. The county also tried other ways to sell the facility but was blocked by additional legal challenges from Center Point. Media reports since the initial lawsuit was filed indicate that as many as 300 filings have been made by the parties to action.

Utah Motorsports Campus Inc. ran the track in 2016 and 2017, spending millions of its own money to do so. In January, Mitime announced that it was withdrawing from negotiations to buy Utah Motorsports Campus, citing the unexpected legal challenges the company had faced.

“When the county has resolved the issues underlying the challenges to a sale,” Xinggui Wang, manager of Mitime Utah Investment LLC, said in a press release, “should the county reoffer UMC for purchase in a new sale, open to public bidding, Mitime may have interest in bidding.”

The proposed settlement agreement between Center Point Management and Tooele County calls for the county pay Center Point Management $1.55 million to end the litigation. Under terms of the agreement, Center Point Management receives half of the settlement cash when it is successful in getting the lawsuit dismissed and the other half when Tooele County sells Utah Motorsports Campus. Center Point filed a motion for dismissal with the court last week.

As part of the settlement, Cartwright and Center Point promise not to interfere in any future sale of Utah Motorsports Campus, effectively clearing the way for Tooele County to sell Utah Motorsports Campus to Mitime or its subsidiaries if there is still interest.{/mprestriction}