OGDEN -- The city is awaiting a decision on whether it will be permitted to purchase property from the Ogden City School District for the construction of an 85,000-square-foot bicycle distribution facility.
Within the next couple of months, the Ogden Board of Education may consider selling to the city about 3.5 acres off 12th Street for the facility that would be built by Quality Bicycle Products, based in Bloomington, Minn.
The city would pay for the property with proceeds from reselling the land to QBP, said Richard McConkie, Ogden's deputy director of community and economic development.
The city also plans to sell another 4.5 acres to QBP that it owns adjacent to the Ogden City School District property, he said.
District Superintendent Noel R. Zabriskie said he doesn't anticipate any obstacles in selling property to the city for the QBP building.
"One of the goals we have with any purchase or sale of property is to make sure it's right for taxpayers," he said. "We are working cooperatively with the city on this development."
In October, QBP chose Ogden for its new distribution center so it could provide ground-based shipping to most of the Western region in two days or less.
The company, which serves more than 5,000 independent bike dealers across the U.S., has a large customer base in the Southwest and Pacific states.
Construction on the building is expected to begin in the spring and conclude in November, Kim Brown, director of distribution for QBP, has said.
While constructing the new facility, QBP will temporarily lease a building in Clearfield, she has said.
QBP plans to hire 50 workers initially and intends to double that number once the distribution center opens. The company also plans eventually to bring some of its brand headquarters to Ogden.
The state is providing to QBP a $2.1 million incentive package over 10 years to assist its relocation to Ogden, Brown has said.
In return, she has said, the company has agreed to operate in Utah for at least a decade and to pay workers 125 percent of Weber County's average wage.
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