SALT LAKE CITY — As officials in Ogden and Roy debate development around the FrontRunner stations in those cities, plans to dramatically overhaul the undeveloped site around the Clearfield FrontRunner stop surge forward.

The Utah Transit Authority Board of Trustees on Wednesday approved the agreement between the UTA and developers, STACK Real Estate of Lehi and Hamilton Partners of Salt Lake City, thus allowing the project to proceed. Clearfield officials had already signed off on the plans and preliminary work — infrastructural upgrades — could begin in October according to J.J. Allen, the Clearfield city manager.

“What is now a sea of asphalt and open field will become a beautiful street network that will facilitate development,” Allen said. STACK and Hamilton Partners would handle construction of the planned housing, retail and office space, possibly starting in the first half of 2022.

UTA owns the 56 acres around Clearfield Station, as the development site is known, and current plans call for apartments, townhomes, commercial space and offices. The rendering of the proposed development, still subject to modification, shows an array of buildings packed into the site, with a park, plaza area, trees and more. As is, the land is largely undeveloped, consisting of parking space, roadway and not much more.

UTA documents say at buildout, Clearfield Station would contain 300,000 to 600,000 square feet of office space, 37,500 to 67,500 square feet of commercial space and up to 1,000 housing units.

The project, “is moving forward in a way that we are very excited about!  Such a large undertaking takes time to sort out all of the details, so it’s great to be on the cusp of a hallmark moment in Clearfield’s history,” Allen said in an email. “People should be noticing big changes this fall!”

Officials in Ogden and Roy have been debating the future development of land around the FrontRunner stations in those locales, but the efforts still have a ways to go.

Roy plans “are on the back burner” for now, said Jordan Swain, UTA’s transit-oriented development project manager. Officials in the city have been debating the sort of development they’d like to see in the area.

Ogden, meantime, would likely be a partner with the UTA in redevelopment the land around the FrontRunner station there, but Swain set no timeline for possible action.

10-YEAR PROJECT

Allen said Clearfield had sold $18.5 million in bonds to help with infrastructure improvements around Clearfield Station and has another $1.5 million from Davis County, accounting for $20 million in all. Requests for bids went out on Wednesday, he said, and the city will oversee improvements to streets, street lights, sidewalks and water, sewer and stormwater systems.

Though work could start as early as October, Allen said the precise timeline would be worked out when a contractor is picked.

While the city is charging ahead, overall development of the housing, retail and office elements of the project will take time. “We’re seeing this as a 10-year phased project,” Swain said, with the work on the first phase commencing in the spring or summer next year.

UTA paperwork included in the agenda packet from Wednesday’s meeting indicates that developers and investors between them plan to invest an initial $22.5 million in the project.

As Roy Mayor Bob Dandoy has put it, UTA seeks development of the spaces around its FrontRunner stations — housing most notably — in part to create a pool of potential FrontRunner users, bolstering ridership on the rail line. The FrontRunner system goes from Ogden in the north to Provo in the south.

Clearfield has experienced a surge in housing development. Last May, officials and developers broke ground on a 15-acre development at the site of a former mobile home park, where up to 369 housing units are to take shape. Other new apartment buildings line Main and State streets through the city.

Newsletter