OGDEN — The Ogden City Council has approved an agreement that clears the way for demolition of the century-old Swift Building and construction of an aerospace manufacturing operation.

Acting as the city’s development agency board, council members voted Tuesday night in favor of selling the land to Atwater Infrastructure Partners, which intends to build a 125,000-square-foot building that would employ 100 people and manufacture materials used in the aerospace and military industries.

First, the city must demolish the Swift structure, which began as a meatpacking plant and ended as an essentially abandoned warehouse full of chemicals and military surplus items that necessitated a $1.7 million environmental cleanup.

That cleanup by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is “98% done,” said Brandon Cooper, the city’s deputy director of community economic development.

After the building is torn down, there may or may not be more environmental cleanup needed.

“Once we clear the building off the land, that would give us a chance to assess the soil and groundwater underneath the building and to determine if there is additional contamination that needs to be dealt with outside the removal of the hazardous materials in the building,” Cooper told the council.

SAMANTHA MADAR, Standard-Examiner file photo

The sales agreement calls for Atwater to pay the city $1.8 million for the Swift property. Cooper said that amount likely will fall to $1.7 million when an anticipated amendment is approved later to shave off part of the tract to allow for a riverbank buffer next to the property.

The city bought the Swift site two years ago for $400,000 from Utah-Smith, an entity tied to the late Bert Smith, a founder of Smith and Edwards Co. City officials said it made sense to buy the site so they could control and accelerate the cleanup, demolition and resale of the blighted site for development.

Cooper said no tax increment financing will be used by the city in the Atwater deal.

“It’s purely a real estate transaction,” he said.

However, Atwater plans to obtain federal Opportunity Zone tax incentives available for developments in low-income urban areas.

The city’s original demolition cost estimate of $500,000 was made before engineers could get access to the dangerous interior of the building. The projected expense has risen to about $1.4 million, Cooper said.

“That additional million dollars, where will that come from?” asked Ben Nadolski, council chairman.

It probably will come from lease revenue generated by Business Depot Ogden, Cooper said.

The Swift site also will need $1 million to $1.5 million of infrastructure improvements along Exchange Road, Cooper said.

Including the $400,000 original purchase, the cleanup costs, the additional demolition expense and the road item, the overall project cost now tops an estimated $4.6 million.

The $1.7 million cleanup is being paid for by the EPA, which has said it may try to recoup some of the cost from entities responsible for the site.

Cooper said the iconic imagery of the Swift building’s white-on-red signage and its smokestack are expected to be replicated in some fashion by the aerospace building’s developers.

The city envisions that the aerospace development, the nearby Trackline redevelopment area and recreation improvements along the Weber River will combine to anchor long-term revival of the west Ogden area.

At its peak, the Swift meatpacking plant employed more than 300 people, according to past Standard-Examiner coverage. It closed in 1970.

The council last week heard an entrepreneur’s proposal to renovate the building for conversion into a multiple-use venue, but officials said there was no time available for a feasibility study and that a delay would kill the Atwater sale.