The city awarded Amer Sports, a Finnish company, the rights - without collecting a fee - to name The Salomon Center. Mayor Matthew Godfrey said Friday that the 230 jobs the company plans to create in Ogden in the coming years are enough.

Amer Sports announced last fall that it would move its North American branch to Ogden. The three main brands that will be based in this northern Utah city are Salomon and Atomic, which make ski equipment, and Suunto, which makes watches and diving equipment.

The right to name the city's recreation center downtown was one of the incentives, said Mike Dowse, president of Amer Sports North America.

"We see this as a centerpiece - one of the reasons we're here," Dowse said Friday.

The company plans to move into the historic American Can building by June or July, and intends to hire 70 or 80 employees locally, Dowse said. Another 35 or 45 are expected to come from Amer Sports locations across the country.

The company committed to creating a total of 230 jobs by 2009 in order to qualify for a state-funded economic-incentive package.

The $18.5 million high-adventure recreation center, which the city will lease out, is to open in early May, said Gary Nielson, owner of Ogden's Gold's Gym franchises and a partner in the company that will operate the center.

It is one of the three major magnets at The Junction, the development that is replacing the failed Ogden City Mall. The Treehouse Museum has been open for months, and Larry Miller's 11-screen cinema complex is due to open in May as well.

Office buildings and a residential tower are just getting under way in The Junction. The Boyer Co. plans to build retail shops and restaurants, as well as some apartments.

The Salomon Center is being called "high-adventure" because of its mix of uses. Besides a wind tunnel for simulated sky-diving, there will be a wave pool that riders on boogie boards will use and a climbing wall.

Gold's Gym will have a 50,000-square-foot fitness center, and Fat Cats will have a bowling alley and arcade. The rec center will be home to two restaurants - Pizza Factory and Costa Vida - and there will be two restaurants, as well as a Champzz Sports Bar.

Ogden has sunk close to $35 million into redevelopment of the old mall site.

Besides selling bonds and using a federal HUD loan for the $18.5 million for the recreation center, the city borrowed $12 million to buy and demolish the old mall, and another $5 million to settle a lawsuit over the city's demolition of a building in which Woodbury Corp. had an interest.

kmoulton@sltrib.com