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South Valley Riverton Journal

Ten Details About Real’s Herriman-based Training Facility

Oct 06, 2016 02:44PM ● By Tori La Rue

Herriman City officials ceremonially break ground on the Real Salt Lake Herriman-based soccer training facility on Sept. 23. (Tori La Rue/City Journals)

By Tori La Rue | [email protected]


In a little less than a year, the nation’s first soccer training facility of its kind will open in Herriman, housing eight fields, a STEM charter school and a rigorous training program for athletes who are hoping to play professional soccer. 

Key players in the creation of the facility broke ground with gold, blue and red shovels on Aug. 23. Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen, RSL manager Craig Martin, former professional soccer player and future facility manager Martin Vasquez, Real players Jordan Allen and Justen Glad, Herriman Mayor Carmen Freeman, other city officials and Jordan School District superintendent Patrice Johnson were among the 20 representatives who participated in the ceremony. Spectators included sponsors of the construction, season ticket holders and community members. 

“I’ve described this facility of what we are building is the Harvard of Soccer education,” Hansen said. “We literally will have no academy finer in the nation or in Canada than what we are building here.” 

Hansen, Martin, Vasquez, Freeman, Johnson and other officials touted the facility’s unique qualities in their speeches at the ceremony. Here are a few facts they mentioned about the 57-acre facility that’s underway near 14700 South and 3700 West off of Mountain View Corridor: 

• Vasquez has played on both the Mexico and United States national soccer teams. 

• About 55,000 children participate in soccer through Utah Youth Soccer Association, and Hansen said he plans to work “hand in glove” with the association to give added coaching and facility to these young athletes. 

• Gordon Haight, Herriman’s assistant city manager, was the first person from the city to approach Hansen about locating the training facility in Herriman. 

• The facility will include a 5,000 seat stadium that will be the home of the Real Monarch’s, Real Salt Lake’s minor league affiliate. 

• Salt Lake Community College’s soccer teams will use the facility. 

• At times, the indoor and outdoor fields will be open for Herriman youth to use. 

• The charter school on the complex will serve 250 high school students. Forty of those students will be soccer academy students who are training to play the sport at the professional level. The other 210 spots will be open to the public for enrollment. 

• The charter school is partnering with the Jordan School District and will focus on science, engineering, technology, math, science, art and sports. 

• The facility design includes a horizontal stretch of boxy designs in the Real Salt Lake colors across the top of the outside building wall. Hansen deemed it the “largest Piet Mondrian painting in the world” because the design will mimic the artist’s primary color, cubism-style artwork. 

• At its completion, the building will be the largest pre-engineered, free-standing building in North America and will house two soccer fields inside of it without a center post. 


The building is slated for completion in September 2017. Look for updates in upcoming editions of the South Valley Journal.