Hotel, cemetery among Roy City’s most desired developments
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- (Clockwise from left) Standard-Examiner publisher Jim Konig, Roy city council member Bryon Saxton, Roy city council member Diane Wilson, Roy city manager Matt Andrews and Roy Mayor Ann Jackson pose for a photo after an editorial board meeting in Roy on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026.
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- (Clockwise from left) Roy city council member Diane Wilson, Roy city council member Bryon Saxton, Roy Mayor Ann Jackson, Roy city manager Matt Andrews and Standard-Examiner reporter Rob Nielson discuss issues at an editorial board meeting in Roy on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026.
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- Roy Mayor Ann Jackons talks about issues during an editorial board meeting with the Standard-Examiner in Roy on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026.
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- Roy city council member Diane Wilson talks about issues during an editorial board meeting with the Standard-Examiner in Roy on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026.
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- Roy city council member Bryon Saxton talks about issues during an editorial board meeting with the Standard-Examiner in Roy on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026.
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- Roy city manager Matt Andrews talks about issues during an editorial board meeting with the Standard-Examiner in Roy on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026.
Editor’s Note: This is the first of three stories following an editorial board interview with several members of Roy City’s government discussing several topics, including challenges facing the city and what direction officials would like to see the city go in the future.
ROY — Desires are abundant among Roy City’s leadership.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about available land — and it’s making bringing in two of the city’s most desired commodities more difficult.
Roy City Manager Matt Andrews said hotels are one thing the community needs.
“We have a hotel feasibility study that says it’s much-needed in this area,” he said. “That’s something that we’ve been pushing and striving for, and I feel like we keep getting almost there and then something happens.”
He said there have been instances where the city was close to getting a hotel deal done, but conditions didn’t allow for it.
“That final step just always comes down to the dollars,” he said. “The last people that had a project that wanted to do a hotel, we actually approved the initial processes to getting the hotel. But they came back and said, ‘The gap is larger than what the participation is,’ and they couldn’t fund it so they just backed away. If interest rates get better or the market improves or other parameters change, then that could change.”
Andrews said that it also comes down to the property owners themselves.
“Property owners have to be willing to sell or willing to change,” he said. “There’s a lot of great businesses that are here and that’s their choice to be there. They have to want that change too, and we recognize that.”
Roy Mayor Ann Jackson said that easy access from I-15 to the city makes such a project almost a natural fit.
“Every developer says that Roy is just perfect for all of these developments because we’re just right off the freeway,” she said. “In Ogden, you have to go down 24th Street or 12th Street or whatever; we’re just right off the freeway, and that’s why there’s so much interest in Roy, because it’s such easy access right off the freeway. And if someone is on a long drive and they see a hotel sign or food, they’re like, ‘Hey, I can’t drive any farther. I’m taking that Roy exit and I’m going to stay in that hotel.'”
She said that having a hotel would help a lot more than just weary travelers.
“For our high school, we rent other hotel ballrooms out for dances, we use car dealerships and other places,” she said. “It could benefit so many things in Roy if we got a hotel.”
Andrews said it will ultimately take a company or developer to take the first plunge.
“That’s always the challenge for every community — to have that first person to take that risk to say, ‘This market works,'” he said. “Once that happens, then other people will follow.”
He said that with recent changes in the city’s codes, the city is at least in a good position.
“Talking to neighboring cities, that was the challenge they faced too; you have to be patient with it,” he said. “I feel like Roy City has come a long way where for a long time. We were always the same, now we’re very progressive.”
However, he said one of the key issues has become available land.
“One of the things that Roy City doesn’t have that a lot of people do is that vacant land,” he said. “We’re more into redevelopment. We don’t have all of these empty fields to just have a clean slate. I think that just brings a different set of challenges for us.”
This land crunch has not only made it harder to find places for people who want to spend a day or two in Roy, it’s also made it difficult for those who would like to spend a literal eternity there.
“We would really like to get a cemetery,” Jackson said. “That would be the main thing I’d like to work on.”
Roy City Council member Bryon Saxton noted that the city’s existing cemetery is already out of space.
“The current cemetery, all of the lots are taken,” he said. “The way the current cemetery fits into the community, there’s no room for expansion because everybody has built around it.”
Jackson said it’s been several years.
“My brother found, I think, one of the last lots on KSL,” she said. “And my sister-in-law died in 2014 and got one of the last lots. That’s really important to the citizens to get a cemetery in Roy.”
Andrews said the city is looking at one piece of land that’s being developed at the moment but did not elaborate on where in the city.
“We’re still working through it with developers of what they want to do with the other part of the land,” he said.
