On Thursday, Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski used the historic venue as not only the setting for his second State of the City address, but he also announced plans to get the ball rolling on its future.

“This city exists because of mobility and transportation,” he said. “We’re going to return this building, this campus, into the economic hub that it always was meant to be. We’re going to honor and cherish the Union Station in ways that you haven’t seen before.”

In the near-term, that will include the return of an important artifact, according to Nadolski.

“In 2026, we’re going to bring back the Merci Car,” he said. “We weren’t bringing it back until it’s ready to be protected for the rest of its life. We’re going to build a facility that covers, cherishes, honors and protects it.”

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

The mayor also said that the Union Station Neighborhood Concept will be moving forward in 2026.

“”We engaged and we listened, and I’m happy to tell you that we have achieved a vision that we are all in agreement with,” he said. “We, as a community, are in alignment. My vision is yours and yours is mine. … We’ve arrived at a vision for Union Station. While we did that work, we invested a lot of money in this facility.”

Nadolski noted that, in 2025, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on updating the electrical system and replacing the station’s roof.

“We can no longer afford to not make progress on this building,” he said.

With that, Nadolski invited members of the Union Station Foundation up to the stage for a special announcement.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“They’re going to give us a gift that we need, of $600,000,” he said. “We’re going to use this money to go out and find the best executive director that money can buy. Somewhere in this country, maybe even in this city or this state, we’re going to find the most talented historic preservationist who knows how to run a capital campaign who can help us create a community capital campaign to go out and raise the funds that we can’t provide on our own, to leverage the money we can’t provide on our own so that we can do the kind of work that preserves this space.”

He said one of the main goals is to ultimately return Ogden Union Station to form and make it a hub for transportation as well as the hub for downtown Ogden.

“We are not just the downtown of Ogden, Utah  — we are the downtown of Northern Utah,” he said. “We are going to work with our legislators and federal delegation to make sure that we’re putting transportation investments and plans in place to make sure that transportation comes back to Union Station, because that is what this is meant to be.”

Nadolski said, in addition to the $600,000 for a preservationist, the Ogden City Council will be considering $5 million that had been set aside for Union Station while waiting for a plan to be put in place and that other grants total $9 million in investment, which is planned for the station campus.

“It’s not going to happen overnight,” he said. “It’s going to happen year by year by year by year. How much can we continue to put forward every single year? I’m really proud to say that in the next year, we’re setting aside $9 million and we’re going to use that leverage more of, guess what — other people’s money — because we’ve got more work to do to turn this city into the city we know it can become.”

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

In addition to celebrating triumphs of the past year, including the addition of homeless medical advocates to the Ogden City Fire Department, the Ogden City Police Department’s recruiting successes and the opening of the new Marshall N. White Community Center, Nadolski also announced a set of school-based town halls and a new city app during Thursday night’s address.