Outgoing Council to Consider Boyer Idea

Company wants to lease half of the Ogden mall site

December 21, 2005
By John Wright
Standard-Examiner Staff
jwright@standard.net

OGDEN -- Three outgoing City Council members said goodbye Tuesday night, but they may not be done yet.

Lame-duck incumbents Kent Jorgenson, Donna Burdett and Fasi Filiaga, who will leave office at the end of the year, each made farewell remarks before the end of the regular council meeting. But the council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency Board, later decided during a work session to meet December 27 to consider a proposed lease and development agreement with the Boyer Co. that would cover almost half of the buildable land at the downtown mall site.

Under the proposal, the Boyer Co. would lease Phase I of the mall site, which covers most of the area between 23rd and 24th streets, from the city for 40 years, with options to renew for another thirty years. The Boyer Co. would be responsible for developing the land and would split with the city the revenue from subleases to the tenants.

Incoming council members have called on the current council to delay a vote on the proposal until after they take office. But during the work session, Jorgenson said that could put the whole project in jeopardy.

"I feel like we own this decision because we've worked on it," Jorgenson said.

Mayor Matthew Godfrey and the Boyer Co. signed the development agreement Dec. 1, and the RDA board has 60 days to ratify it or it becomes void.

The development agreement calls on the Boyer Co. to develop a multiscreen theater complex, as well as at least 50,000 square feet of retail space and 40,000 of office space, in Phase I. It also gives the company an option to develop Phase II of the mall project, which is the area between 2250 South, Washington Boulevard, 23rd Street and Kiesel Avenue.

Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller has said he plans to sublease land for the theater complex, which would have 12 screens and sit son south-west 23rd Street and Kiesel Avenue.

Last month, the City Council approved financing for an $18.5 million high-adventure recreation center northwest of the intersection.