OGDEN, Utah — The Ogden City Council approved a $5,562,044 purchase of the 8.6 acres of land under Union Station earlier this month.
The nearly 100-year-old building off 25th Street is a landmark for the Ogden community and is home to several museums and historic artifacts, and was a bustling historic site itself back in the day.
“Right here at Union Station during the war, this was a crossroads of you know this was a very, very active rail place, and so there’s a lot of neat rail collections here,” said Amelia Jones, the president of Union Station Foundation. “There’s a lot of things that have a lot of the history of not just Ogden, but also of Utah.”
Union Pacific owned the building and the land underneath it until 50 years ago, when they handed over the building to Ogden City.
However, the company retained ownership of the land and leased it to Ogden City under a contract set to expire in 2027.
“We knew that Union Pacific wasn’t interested in extending the lease term, and they weren’t interested in owning the building themselves,” said Brandon Cooper, the director of community and economic development for Ogden City.
Cooper said city leaders feared the company would sell Union Station, and with it, the historic artifacts it housed, which is why they signed on to an agreement to purchase the land underneath it.
“Buying the land and retaining ownership of the building is really just the first step to what we see as a large planning process that encompasses not only the station itself, but the acreage to the north and the acreage to the south, which creates about a 35-acre campus,” he said.
Cooper said they hope to get community input on what the future of the building and its museums will look like.
In the meantime, community members have already started to voice their opinions.
“If Ogden would have let the lease expire for the property in 2027, everything would go back to the Union Pacific,” said Steve Jones. “The museums, the Eccles Rail Center, everything would be left without a home. And so there really was no choice except to purchase the property.”
Jones started a Facebook group called "Save Union Station,” which has more than 800 followers, and he says 12,000 people have commented on the city’s purchase of the site already.
He said he supports the city’s purchase of the lot but has concerns about the plans moving forward.
“One of the concerns is if Ogden City puts contracts in place with a developer, it may be too late to change directions,” he said. “We want to try to get ahead of things; we want to try to make sure that the community has input into what happens.”
Both he and Amelia Jones said they believe the city and the community can work together toward a common goal of preserving the city’s rich history.
“I think we all want an awesome museum, an awesome campus here in Ogden,” Jones said. “We all see different ways to get there, and the best thing that can happen is that we can work together, stay positive and listen to what the group is saying and figure it out.”
Cooper said the city has around 180 days to officially close on the contractual agreement with Union Pacific and the redevelopment agency.
