Lame-Ducks "Own" the Mall-Site Project for the Next Seventy Years, Jorgenson Says

It would appear that an Ogden city/Boyer Company mall-site management/development contract is all but a done deal, gentle readers, according to this morning's John Wright Standard-Examiner story.

The lame duck city council has suddenly added one remaining "big-ticket" item to its dwindling agenda. Ratification of the Ogden city/Boyer pact has been set for the December 27 council calendar; and after that date there will realistically be no turning back -- not within most of our lifetimes.

"Under the proposed "development agreement," 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 30 years. The Boyer Co. would be responsible for developing the land and would split with the city the revenue from subleases with the tenants."

John's article enumerates other significant contract terms:

1) Boyer will be obligated to "develop" a multiscreen theater, 50,000 square feet of retail space, and 40,000 square feet of retail space on the Phase I site. (John's report is silent, unfortunately, about specifically who will be legally-obligated to pay for the future build-outs, or whether Ogden city will be absolved from participation in any future financing. The article does say, however, "[t]he Boyer Co. would be responsible for developing the land..." so perhaps future financing won't actually be the taxpayers' problem.)

2) Boyer will have an option to develop Phase II of the mall project, which is the area between 2250 South, Washington Boulevard, 23rd Street, and Kiesel Avenue.

Assuming that Boyer exercises all available options, this would apparently bind virtually ALL the available buildable land at the mall-site for the next seventy years. The citizens of Ogden City will be in bed with the Boyer Co. well into the lifetimes of our grand-children. Whether this is a good or bad thing I do not know. What I do know is that Boyer Co. knows how to drive a hard bargain.

I will say that it's encouraging, though, to see that Boyer Co. will apparently be "ram-rodding" this project. At least our city fathers seem bright enough to recognize that they lack the capacity to handle something as complicated as this themselves. And we'll all have to concede, I think, that the Boyer Co. has done a better than decent job with BDO.

John reports that there's already been some squabbling about the timing of the ratification. Whereas our newly-elected councilpeople complain that the contract ratification should be put off until they are seated, the lame-duck council, forever true to their nefarious past patterns, indicate that they intend to shove one last project down the citizens' throats, before their reign of terror is ended.

"I feel we own this project because we worked on it," lame-duck Comrade Jorgenson says.

I'll be doing some research on this today, and will try to gather a little more information about the precise terms of the Ogden City/Boyer contract. If I come up with anything interesting, I'll be sure to report back here with an update.

The Standard-Examiner's IP people apparently forgot to upload today's edition to the StandardNET website, so I can't furnish a link to today's hard-copy story. They say they're 'working" on it. I'll post a link if the story ever appears. (I mention this, because the Std-Ex hard-copy edition featured a multicolored map that seemed to indicate that the small parcel which the Church of the Good Shepard has been trying to acquire, is now excluded from the above-mentioned Phase I map. Could this spell good news for Rev. Linton and his congregation? We can only hope.)

In the meantime, what say our gentle readers about all this?