Make Ogden presents first draft of vision for Historic 25th Street
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- Residents look over a proposal for revamping Historic 25th Street during an open house for the Make Ogden project on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024.
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- Historic 25th Street in Ogden, as pictured from the Union Station plaza on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024.
OGDEN — Historic 25th Street could look very different in the future, if that’s what the people want.
On Wednesday, city officials unveiled a rough draft of changes to 25th Street as part of the Make Ogden initiative that would make the corridor more pedestrian and event friendly. The meeting brought dozens of curious residents to Union Station for a presentation and opportunity to leave comments and feedback.
Damen Burnham, redvelopment manager with Ogden City, told the Standard-Examiner that 25th Street is a fundamental part of downtown.
“It has been for decades, and it deserves its opportunity to get a new look and be upgraded along with the other downtown developments that we have,” he said. “It’s critical to connecting the downtown projects that we foresee, like WonderBlock along with potential Electric Alley redevelopment along with Union Station.”
The main focus of the plan — stretching from Washington Boulevard to Wall Avenue — would be to widen sidewalks. Under the drafted proposal, street parking would still be available on both sides of the street, though it would be changed to parallel parking on the north side. The rough draft includes the addition of 127 street trees and 14,500 square feet of open planting areas. The plan includes mid-block plazas adding an additional 3,800 square feet of public space.
The last time the street had a major overhaul was in the 1980s, Burnham said during a short presentation on the proposal, and was focused more on accommodating vehicles rather than pedestrian traffic.
Burnham said the plans got their unofficial start in 2019 and have been going through public engagement sessions since 2021.
“This is a critical part for people to kind of see what I would call our ‘preferred concept’ and give feedback on that,” he said. “We can take that and integrate that into a final concept, and then really it’s looking for the appropriate funding, getting that approved through the administration and the City Council, and seeing when and if we can do this.”
He said the vision for 25th Street, if it takes hold, could take quite a while before coming to fruition.
“We at least have to go through, I would say, at least another year of construction planning,” he said. “This is just a streetscape concept. There’s an entire utility layer that has to be considered. So as we work with our Public Services Department to determine that, it’s really difficult to say when this could get in. It could be a couple years. It could be much longer. ”
Meanwhile, Burnham said the public will be hearing a lot on Make Ogden’s other initiatives as the year goes along.
“Our Union Station master plan will go through some major public engagements,” he said. “As other projects have opportunities in downtown, hopefully we can start to get some public engagement on Electric Alley. As WonderBock is underway, even though the plan can’t change, I’m sure we’ll have some community conversations about the progress of that and how it’s going.”
For more information on the 25th Street proposal and Make Ogden and to give feedback on the proposal, visit https://www.ogdencity.com/2424/Make-Ogden.