OGDEN — Business Depot Ogden isn’t slowing down in being a driver for commerce in Ogden City.

More than 30 years after the property was turned over to civilian use, Business Depot Ogden Partner Aaron Austad said that growth has been brisk over the last five years, though it has been tempered somewhat.

“We were building about 1 million-square-feet per year,” he said. “That was right after COVID and things just went crazy in the industrial world. In the last two years, things have slowed down quite a bit. This year, we’re building close to 300,000-square-feet, which is still quite a bit for the market we’re in.”

He said this slowdown has meant that projections for filling in the remaining 150 acres of available land have extended a bit.

“We were projected to be built-out in 2-3 years a few years ago because we were building so fast,” he said. “Now that projection is more like 5-7 years before we’d be built out. It’s definitely slowed down, and I’d say even 5-10 years in reality because it’s all market driven.”

Austad said that occupancy of what has been developed is 98% as of this month.

“Most people don’t know this — we are actually the biggest business park in the state of Utah, by far,” he said.

Since the official founding of Business Depot in 2000, the site has grown to 1,118 acres. In addition to the 83 existing buildings that were left for use from the former DDO (totaling 6.5 million square feet), 51 additional buildings have been built, adding another 7.6 million square feet.

Austad said the remaining 150 acres could bring the total under-roof square footage of over 17 million-square-feet.

Even when it’s built out, the Boyer Company which manages the BDO, will be be overseeing the property for quite some time.

“We have the master lease for the 70-year span. There’s still another 48 years or something like that,” he said. “With that, each one of those buildings that we build also has an additional 50 years on it. We own the building and then after 50 years, that gets turned over to Ogden City. At that point, there will have to be a negotiation once all of that is complete — that’s 80-90 years down the road.”

In the meantime, Austad said they would love to see continued growth in one of the cornerstones of the BDO into the future.

“We obviously love manufacturing,” he said. “Manufacturing is fantastic for the economy in general, it brings jobs and about one-third of our tenants are manufacturing. We love those tenants, but we also love warehouse distribution as well. It just depends on the need.”

He said they are always looking to make newer spaces versatile.

“We build these buildings so they can provide for manufacturing but also for warehouse,” he said. “We’ll look at upsizing water lines, power — we’ll do that all to future-proof the building in a way that when a manufacturer comes in, it’s easily converted into a manufacturing space, or vice versa and converted back into warehouse distribution.”

Austad added that there is also land along 12th Street that had been reserved for office space, but needs may be changing as time goes along.

“We thought tenants were going to want their warehouse space and a nicer office space, and that just isn’t the case,” he said. “We always build the office in the warehouse for them. That whole section used to be planned out to be office space. Most likely that will all turn into retail or the flex spaces you see where it’s got a retail component and a warehouse in back. I would love to see that growth.”

For more information on Business Depot Ogden, visit https://www.boyerbdo.com/.