Downtown Ogden taking off

The city will continue to own most of that property when The Junction is complete, Godfrey said. According to the city's Web site, that same land is projected to be worth $182 million by 2010.

Ogden officials recognized when they bought the land that they faced a problem: Downtown malls across the nation were dying.

Ogden's planning manager Greg Montgomery points to ZCMI Center and Crossroads malls in Salt Lake City, both of which will be transformed into City Creek Center over the next five years.

The Junction in Ogden will be a similar mixed-use development, where people can live, work and play in the same area, and the city's downtown is expected to become a vibrant, happening place again.

Within a two-block radius of The Junction, patrons will be able to jump on a FrontRunner commuter-rail train, catch a baseball game, visit the city's historic district or listen to a concert at an outdoor amphitheater.

And more jobs are also on the way.

Ogden persuaded Amer Sports to bring the North American headquarters of three of its brands — Salomon, Wilson and Suunto — to the city in exchange for naming rights to the high-adventure recreation center, as well as $4.2 million in incentives from Ogden and $7.9 million from the Governor's Office of Economic Development board.

About 230 employees will occupy the office space in the American Can complex, which has been vacant since the early 1980s, Godfrey said. Most of the employees will be on location by the end of this year, with more to come over the next couple of years.

Mike Dowse, president and general manager of Amer's winter and outdoor division, told the Deseret Morning News in October that the company is going to be a lot closer to its consumers.

"We have a saying that we want to 'own' the mountain," Dowse said, "and you kind of have to be on the mountain to own it."

As for patrons of the Salomon Center, they'll see tonight and after the center's grand opening June 22 that they can be on their own mountain of sorts, with that climbing wall.

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E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com