TOOELE COUNTY, Utah -- It's official, Tooele County voted Tuesday night to approve the sale of the Miller Motor Sports Park to Chinese company, Mitime Investment and Development Group. The group plans to make the sports park an international destination, expecting to bring $1 billion dollars to the area in the next 25 years.
The park's new name will be the Utah Motor Sports Campus. Mitime is purchasing the property from Tooele County for $20 million dollars. They are expected to invest another $2.5 million into the infrastructure.
The plan is to use the campus as a base to train Chinese people in the culture of racing, and then bring that eduction back to China, where Mitime is in the process of building five state of the art race tracks. Mitime also said it plans to maintain most if not all the employees currently working at the race track. They said no Chinese people will take American jobs. They also plan to increase their race schedule and keep their racing school.
"People who have poured their life savings into this community into this endeavor it means everything to have the continuity and the stability that this deal promises," said Chris Sloan, of the Toeele Chamber of Commerce.
The public comment portion of the meeting was unanimously in favor of the deal. However, there was one potential buyer who said at the end of the day Tooele County is losing out because they could of had more money.
Andrew Cartwright said he was willing to offer $50 million dollars for the property and he is now suing the county over their business practices.
"They have a fiduciary responsibility to Tooele, if the guy worth 2.5 billion dollars can't pull out a check book and match what I'm willing to pay we got a problem," said Cartwright.
The county said Cartwright's offer was only $22.5 million. Mitime officially takes over operations on October 31st.
