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OGDEN - The idea of a downtown mall has germinated for decades. An early 1980s attempt - the Ogden City Mall - flared and fizzled.
Now, a year after the Salomon Center and Megaplex 13 theaters opened in the demolished space that boxey, two-story mall occupied, the rest of its successor, the city-owned Junction, is finally taking shape.
Construction crews are putting up frames for retail shops and apartments as two office buildings - bookends for the Washington Boulevard version of Salt Lake City's The Gateway - fill with tenants.
The first owners of condos in the tallest building - the six-story Earnshaw Building - should be able to move in later in the summer, according to developer David Earnshaw.
On Tuesday, Iggy's Sports Grill will open, joining Sonora Grill and Subway as the first of the outdoor mall's stand-alone restaurants.
"It's going up," said a pleased Richard McConkie, the city's deputy director of community development.
But the project is behind. Ogden City and its partner, The Boyer Co., had expected The Junction to be further along by now.
The city bought and demolished the failed Ogden City Mall downtown nearly eight years ago, and in late 2005, approved financing that pushed the city's investment to more than $40 million.
The Salomon Center, with simulated sky diving, a climbing wall, a wave pool, Gold's Gym and Fat Cats bowling/arcade, was even more successful than expected in its first year, said partner Gary Nielsen. The center exceeded its revenue prediction by 10 percent, he said. The operators paid the city all the lease money owed - $695,000, said city finance manager John Arrington.
Unfortunately, lease revenue from the rest of the mall has fallen short, he said.
On Tuesday, the City Council will be asked to tap into the flush coffers of Business Depot Ogden to help cover $819,000 more of The Junction's debt payments.
Already, the city was using $750,000 in BDO funds to pay mall debt this year. Arrington said some of the shortfall was in property-tax revenue since development of Phase 1 has been slow.
But mostly, it's because the city and Boyer haven't had much retail lease revenue to share yet.
Brad Galvez, Boyer project manager, said paperwork among the development partners and lenders slowed the project and prospective tenants lately have turned a bit skittish.
"They are taking more of a cautious approach," said Galvez.
Boyer has tenants for half of the retail space it is building, he said. All of it should be completed by December, but the nearly 100 apartments that a partner is building will not be finished by then.
One tenant the city announced last fall, MacCool's Public House, is no longer a sure thing. But Galvez said negotiations continue.
The largest retail space in The Junction, the ground floor of the Earnshaw building, has not yet been leased.
But Dan Musgrave, who bought the space with two other Ogden investors, Bill Hancock and Gordon James, said he expects to have it leased in 90 days.
The partners are talking to health-food stores, day spas, doctors and restaurants, he said. When he bought the property, Earnshaw said he wanted to attract a grocery store.
Meanwhile, Good Shepherd Episcopal Church continues to raise money for a new sanctuary that will be built behind its historic chapel on the southwest corner of the 22-acre Junction. Diocese attorney Stephen Hutchinson said construction likely will be under way in early fall.
Downturn stalls project
Two major corners of The Junction will remain bare for a while. Stuart Reid, the city's former community-development director who bought the development's northwest corner to build 62 luxury condos, said he won't break ground for 18 to 24 months.
The economic downturn caused banks and potential buyers to back away.
The market likewise has stalled another proposed project: a high-rise hotel for the corner of Washington Boulevard and 23rd Street.
- Kristen Moulton