Boyer's Jeff Gochnour announced the name during a meeting of the Ogden Redevelopment Agency Board, which also unanimously approved a conceptual plan calling for townhouses, retail shops, offices and restaurants in Phase 1 of The Junction.

The discussion was in stark contrast to the acrimony over one of the anchors in The Junction, the high adventure recreation center approved by the previous City Council acting as the RDA board in November.

"I salute everybody that's had a hand in this," said Bill Glasmann, a new council member who was critical of the recreation center financing. "When you come to a junction you take a new direction. It could not be more apt to take a new direction in Ogden."

Gochnour, a senior project manager for Boyer, said the company chose The Junction over the other finalist, The Summit, not just for its allusion to Ogden's railroading history and nickname, Junction City.

"We're also at a junction where we're trying to create the new Ogden," Gochnour said. "We view this as the future gathering place . . . of not only Ogden, but the region."

Residents had also chosen The Junction as one of their top choices in a naming campaign.

Besides the recreation center, The Junction has several other people magnets.

The Treehouse Children's Museum is nearing completion at the north end, just south of the LDS Temple, and Larry H. Miller plans a 12-screen cinema complex next to the recreation center.

Salt Lake City developer David Earnshaw plans a six-story building with luxury condominiums, a grocery store and offices. He has told the city he has buyers lined up for all the space.

For a city that watched the old Ogden City Mall lose most of its 125 shops before the city bought it and put it out of its misery, Tuesday's talk was heady stuff.

Ogden City will own the land that Boyer will develop, and will share in the Salt Lake City company's profits.

Gochnour said The Boyer Co. plans a four- to five-story office building at the corner of Washington Boulevard and 24th Street.

Like The Gateway in Salt Lake City, which Boyer developed, The Junction will have a mix of uses. Cowboy Partners, which built the housing units in the Gateway, will also build the townhouses along Washington Boulevard and four-story structures with townhouses and apartments to the west of Washington.

It was also revealed Tuesday night that the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd will be able to buy the land it wants for a new chapel. The church community wants the parcel east of its 132-year-old church all the way to Kiesel Avenue so it can build a new, larger chapel.

The city had balked at selling the entire parcel to the church because it wanted to put retail shops along Kiesel Avenue. Boyer said it didn't need the retail space. Negotiations are still underway on the details, but city planner Greg Montgomery said the church's property will go to Kiesel, as the church has sought all along.

Janith Wright, owner of Clifton's, a women's apparel business across Washington Boulevard from the proposed project, said she is elated to know The Junction will break ground in May or June.

Businesses all along Washington have been shuttered since the mall began failing in the mid-1990s. "No one is more excited than I am," Wright said.