It's life or death for Ogden mall site plan

Tuesday vote: Lame-duck City Council will decide on whether to issue millions in bonds for the project
By Kristen Moulton
The Salt Lake Tribune
November 21, 2005

Matthew Godfrey: His vision for downtown is running out of time

OGDEN - Matthew Godfrey was a fresh-faced 29-year-old who wanted to shake up Ogden when he first was elected mayor six years ago. A former Iomega program manager and inner-city landlord, Godfrey promised to use his business acumen to revive this slumbering northern Utah city.

Well, Ogden is awake now, and its residents are choosing sides in an increasingly nasty debate over Godfrey's plan to build a high-stakes, adventure-recreation center that will be run by private businesses.

It's an emotional issue.

In the days leading up to Tuesday's vote by the lame-duck Redevelopment Agency Board (the City Council) on whether to float millions of dollars of bonds for the project, one of the city's private partners was publicly calling opponents' failed petition drive "asinine." Opponents sent excoriating e-mails to City Hall that accused Godfrey of trying to bankrupt Ogden.

Earlier this month, voters roundly rejected the four City Council candidates - including two incumbents - who said they support the recreation center. That gives the new council, which assumes office in January, a majority that opposes Godfrey's plan - but they're powerless to stop Tuesday's vote.

Godfrey maintains the entire future of Ogden's sorry downtown rests on the high-adventure recreation center. The mayor argues that it's the pivotal piece of a project to remake downtown Ogden, whose streets - except for the increasingly vibrant 25th Street - are lined with empty shops.

If the rec center were voted down, Godfrey says, the city would lose out on the millions spent to buy and demolish the old Ogden City Mall, and it would miss the opportunity to partner with The Boyer Co. to replace the failed mall with shops, restaurants, offices, apartments and, importantly, an 11-theater-and-restaurant complex that will be owned by Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller.

Boyer President Steve Ostler agrees his company will go away if the rec center does not happen.

It takes all three people magnets - the recreation center, cinemas and the Treehouse Museum already under construction - to create enough "pizazz" to draw regional visitors and turn downtown around, he says.

Ogden, says Ostler, may not be the best place to invest, he says. But, he adds, "I have become a believer."

The great divide: Those who oppose the recreation center generally fall into two camps.

A large portion of the population - older and in the habit of voting - may not understand the complex financial deal Godfrey has put together. They instinctively worry that the city is taking too big of a gamble, and they worry that Godfrey is transforming "Junction City" into Ogden Inc.

Already, Ogden's business assets dwarf its government assets. At the end of the 2004 budget year, the city had $186 million in net business assets, thanks largely to Business Depot Ogden (BDO), and less than $88 million in net government assets: brick and mortar, sewers and water mains.

A smaller, more-vocal group has coalesced over the past year to oppose most of Godfrey's initiatives, including his aborted effort to shed the city of the Marshall White Center and his attempt to condemn property for the now-tabled Wal-Mart project.

They say Godfrey's deal-making skills are suspect since federal inspectors earlier this year expressed displeasure with the $10 million loan from BDO to buy the Ogden City Mall. Now the city has been forced to refinance the debt for $12 million. Moreover, the city is also selling bonds to pay for a $5 million legal settlement with the Woodbury Corp., which had an interest in an old mall structure that the city destroyed without permission.

The recreation center, Godfrey opponents say, has the potential to become a white elephant that could sap the city's ability to pay for desperately needed infrastructure improvements. And opponent Mitch Moyes laments that the tax-increment property taxes from several old redevelopment projects could instead have gone for trails, parks or cultural amenities.

Councilman-elect Bill Glasmann says he watched support plunge for the rec center when residents learned this fall that the city, after all, will be on the financial hook.

Last spring, Godfrey's administration had promised the city's general fund would not be at risk. But after negotiating with banks for several months, the city's proposal has changed. Now, the revenue stream from the lucrative BDO is being used as collateral for millions in rec-center bonds.

If the administration's plan fails for repaying the bonds - using lease payments from the rec center operators as well as property taxes from 10 earlier redevelopment projects - then BDO revenue can be tapped. If that revenue isn't enough, the city council would be asked to tap the general fund.

Among the multitude of decisions the City Council must make on Tuesday: a revision in the ordinance that previously designed that BDO revenue be used to improve the city's water and sewer system.

"That's our lifeblood," says Glasmann. "That's money that could go to public safety, increasing the number of firefighters and [fixing] our infrastructure. Now it's tied up. It seems like one big gamble to me."

Lame-duck council members say they are confident BDO money still will be available for improving the city's water and sewer infrastructure. In the meantime, downtown needs help, says outgoing Councilwoman Donna Burdett.

"Unless something is done in that mall area, pretty soon the whole area will be dead."