NORTH OGDEN — The parking lot at the new Smith’s Marketplace overflowed with cars, so much so that cars filled nearly every space in the strip mall of the old Smith’s lot as well.

All of the hubbub was to get a chance to be one of the first to peruse the new Smith’s Marketplace Store at 2434 N. 400 East in North Ogden. The store opened its doors to the public at 8 a.m. Wednesday.

The store treated customers to cupcakes, doughnuts, free samples and a plethora of holiday sale items. The first 300 through the door received a coupon for free breakfast items. The live band Dark Horse greeted customers walking in through the north entrance.

With so many people attending the opening, staff had to run back to the old store to collect more shopping carts.

The new 123,000-square-foot store offers more than supermarket items.

At twice the size of a normal Smith’s supermarket, it has more than 200,000 products in one location, including food, apparel, housewares, household decor, hardware and a gardening center.

Ogden resident Vickie Ramos came to check out the store with her husband, Ralph.

“You hear about the Markteplace sometimes but we’ve never seen a Marketplace,” Vickie said. “We wanted to see all that the Marketplace has to offer. I’ll bring my daughter. She’ll like all of the clothes and stuff.”

Jolene Fischer from North Ogden came with her daughter.

Fischer works in Bountiful and has shopped at the Marketplace down there, but she is glad to have one in her area.

“We’ve been waiting,” Fischer said. “We’ve always shopped Smith’s. I think we needed more business in North Ogden. I think it will bring in more of a tax base. Shop local is a good thing.”

North Ogden resident Sara Stanworth followed the construction progress of the store. She said she is glad residents do not have to leave town to go shopping at a big store.

“This is a lot bigger than I thought,” Stanworth said. “I didn’t think that it would have so much. We’re just excited we don’t have to go far to shop now. We have a lot more quality out here.”

Aside from food and home furnishings, the store also has a Fred Meyer Jeweler, a U.S. Bank branch and a Starbucks Coffee kiosk.

Unlike the old location, the new $30 million store also offers full-time sushi and Bistro chefs who prepare fresh food entrees, pizzas and sandwiches.

The store also offers an extensive cheese, antipasto and olive island; expanded produce area with more organic fruits and vegetables; and an organic natural food department with bulk and frozen selections.

It also has an expanded baby and pet section, as well as a drive-through pharmacy.

“We really listened to our customers to the things that they wanted and the things that they cared about,” said Marcia Gilford, vice president of public affairs for Smith’s. “It’s a result of a lot of planning and a lot of listening to our customers when it came to planning this store.”

Smith’s Marketplace will keep the fuel center. With more shopping opportunities at the new location, Gilford said customers can gather more points that they can apply to fuel discounts.

“You end up creating a sense of loyalty because people enjoy the fuel savings as well,” Gilford said.

To handle the new products and services, the store hired an additional 225 employees for a total of 300 associates at the new store.

Aside from providing a larger selection, Smith’s also wanted to make improvements in the energy efficiency for the new building by implementing the newest technologies in cooling, water and lighting design.

Light sensors on the roof and inside the store determine the need for overhead lighting, automatically turning off overhead lights when the skylights provide adequate natural light.

Motion sensors in the fridges and freezers dim the LED lights when they go without use for an extended period of time.

“As we continue to build stores,” Gilford said, “we try to do more and more to make them more energy efficient.”

With the opening of the new Smith’s Marketplace, the old Smith’s Food & Drug next door has closed its doors.

The pharmacy moved all prescription information to the new location and the management donated any left over food to Catholic Community Services. The Joyce Hansen Hall Food Bank in Ogden took about 400 pounds of produce and some shopping carts for its clients.

The location itself will be divided, updated and leased as new retail and office space.

Smith’s, which is a division of Kroger, began exploring expanding the Marketplace brand eight years ago, Gilford said.

“It works very well,” Gilford said. “Well enough that we’re putting $100 million to build more of them in the next two years.”

The marketplace brand is based on the old Fred Meyer’s brand, which merged with Kroger in 1999.

The North Ogden location is the seventh Smith’s Marketplace store in Utah and the third in northern Utah. The others are in Bountiful and Logan.

Smith’s will open an eighth store in West Jordan on Dec. 3. The company plans to build another in Kaysville in 2015.