More Development Projects Coming to Ogden

There are three major development projects coming to Ogden: Wonder Block, Encircle House and Dumke Arts Plaza.

July 26, 2021

Rendering of Wonder Block – mixed-use development by Ogden City

Ogden is booming. While trying to preserve the past and move forward into the future several development projects are planned and are underway.

There are three major development projects coming to Ogden: Wonder Block, Encircle House, and Dumke Arts Plaza.

Wonder Block

The Wonder Block, just south of Historic 25th Street on 26th and Grant, is a five-acre redevelopment plan that will be the first of many projects in the new MAKE Ogden Master Plan, to be completed in phases. Phase 1 is currently underway, with a target date of Q4 2021, for commencement with the others to follow thereafter.

Phase 1

September/October

Road improvements: The street improvements, currently underway, will make a complete street with bike lanes and sidewalks.
New parking structure: 753 parking stall structure south of the courts building. This needs to be in place for the State to transfer the property south of 25th Street to the development. 100 of the parking stalls will be provided to the court during the day plus parking for apartments, retail development, and the general public.

Phase 2

TBD

Approximately 300 three-story apartment units above retail space.
111,000 sq. ft., five-story office space on Lincoln.
67,000 sq. ft. of retail on ground levels on Lincoln, Grant, and a portion of 26th Street.
Second 390 stall parking structure to the west.

Phase 3

99 room hotel on 25th Street.
24,300 sq. ft. of outdoor and indoor amenity space.

There is also a four-story apartment building planned for 26th Street.

Encircle House

Encircle, a Utah-based nonprofit that offers love and support for LGBTQ+ youth, is currently building the upcoming urban-style brick brownstone right in the heart of downtown Ogden on Washington and 25th Street that will support 260,213 people in Weber County with mental health therapy and programs for LGBTQ+ youth and their families. This is the first of eight new homes Encircle is currently set to build in four states. Encircle has existing homes in Salt Lake, St. George, and Provo.

The builder is Nilson Homes. Jed Nilson, President of Nilson Homes, was inspired by a childhood friend to help Encircle build the Ogden location. He didn’t find out until years later that his friend had kept his gay sexuality a secret and had struggled with thoughts of suicide.

Cafe/kitchen and dining room on the first floor.
Art and “friendship circle” rooms on the second floor.
Three therapy rooms on the third floor.
Covered patio and outdoor plaza in back and a small plaza in front.

Dumke Arts Plaza

The groundbreaking was held in February for the new Dumke Arts Plaza that will be located on the southwest corner of 25th Street and Ogden Avenue. The Plaza, set to open in October, was part of the City’s Master Plan for the Nine Rails Creative District; it will be home to arts events that are always public, from intimate concerts and live performances to film screenings and art installations, and will bring Weber State University downtown to the Creative District, something that was important to the Dr. Ezekiel R. and Edna Wattis Dumke Foundation, which is contributing $1 million for plaza construction and an additional $2 million for arts programming at the plaza through an endowment to Weber State University.

“Flexible open space” to accommodate large-scale public art installations and events.
A large LED screen for multimedia art displays and sculpture extending over 25th Street
Elevated platform with a ramp to serve as an area for additional arts programming

Subscribe to Utah Stories weekly newsletter and get our stories directly to your inbox

Development Projects, Ogden, Utah Stories

Ogden, Ogden develpoment

Deann Armes

Deann Armes, AKA “The Ogdenite Writer”, is a freelance journalist with an eye for unpolished beauty. This vision landed her in “untamed” Ogden where she relocated to seek offbeat adventures with her kids in 2015. She loves unearthing the unseen in Utah’s lands, history, culture, and people — and bringing it to light through story. When not writing, Deann is out hiking, kayaking, or exploring Ogden’s Historic 25th Street and her old stomping grounds in Salt Lake for the best food, drinks, and stories.

Utah Stories

Highway 6 and the Midland Trail: Utah’s Transcontinental Highway History

From Price Canyon to Delta’s desert stretch, Utah played a central role in building the Midland Trail, one of America’s earliest transcontinental highways and the foundation of today’s Highway 6.
Utah Stories

Utah Acquires US Magnesium Assets in $30M Deal to Protect the Great Salt Lake

Utah leaders announced the state has successfully won the bid to acquire key assets of the defunct US Magnesium facility on the Great Salt Lake, including its associated water rights and property.
Podcast

Whiskey, Bullets & a Buried Town: Archaeologists Reveal Alta’s Wild Past

Before Alta was known for powder days and lift lines, it was a silver mining town clinging to the side of a narrow canyon. In the late 1800s, men lived at 8,000 feet, went underground each day, and endured winters that regularly buried buildings in snow. This past summer, that mining town resurfaced — literally — during construction at the Alta Ski Area.

To understand what Alta really looked like, you don’t begin with legend. You begin with its trash — and this time, that happened almost by accident.

Alta Ski Area was installing underground water reservoirs to support snowmaking. Because the project sits on Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest land, an archaeologist was required to monitor the excavation. No one expected the trench to produce much.

But, It did.

Artifacts began surfacing almost immediately. Enough that the Forest Service contacted the Utah State Historic Preservation Office for help. Lexi Little, who coordinates the Utah Cultural Site Stewardship Program, helped mobilize nearly 30 volunteers to assist with what quickly became a focused two-week excavation.

Winter deadlines were approaching. The pipes for the reservoirs had to go in the ground. There wasn’t time for a slow, extended dig.

“It was two weeks of digging in the dirt and helping figure out exactly what we were looking at,” Little said.

Most of the people screening soil weren’t professional archaeologists. They were trained stewards from around Utah — part of a statewide volunteer network that now approaches 500 people. They poured dirt through shaker screens, scanning for fragments that could piece together a town long buried.

“Archaeology is human trash,” Little explained. “Archaeologists are very into trash.”

Alta had left plenty behind.

https://youtu.be/hzIHzx3OGoo?si=dKcl2CEz-t6FZzYw

Victorian-style ceramics appeared first — the kind typically used in hotels. Medicine bottles followed. Ink bottles. Hand-blown glass. A porcelain doll’s foot surfaced from the soil, a small detail that shifted the mental image of the town. Families were here. Children were here. This wasn’t only a camp of miners.

The bottles helped establish time. Manufacturing details — whether glass was hand-blown or mold-made, whether a maker’s mark appeared on the base — allowed archaeologists to date many of the artifacts to the 1870s through the 1890s, when Alta was booming as a silver mining town.

“That gives you that range of dates for when Alta was really booming,” Little said.

One reusable soda bottle clearly stamped “Salt Lake City” connected the canyon to the valley economy below.

Then something unusual rolled out of a dirt pile.

A corked bottle. Intact. Liquid still inside.

To access this post, you must purchase Utah Stories (Digital + Print) or 3 month free trial (Digital).
Podcast

The Only Full Bottle of Alcohol Ever Found in Utah Was Unearthed in Alta

When a backhoe rolled a corked bottle out of the dirt at Alta this summer, no one immediately grasped what they were holding. It wasn’t empty. It wasn’t shattered. It was full. “The bottle that was discovered up at Alta is the only bottle of alcohol ever discovered in an archaeological excavation in the state…