Junction attracts three unique restaurants
Local flavor key to success, Godfrey says

BY CHARLES F. TRENTELMAN
Standard-Examiner staff
September 6, 2007

    OGDEN — Three new tenants are moving into the second phase of the Junction, joining the Salomon Center and Megaplex 13 theaters, which opened their doors in June, Mayor Matthew Godfrey announced Wednesday.
    The three are all restaurants: MacCool’s Public House, Iggy’s Sports Grill and the Sonora Grill.
    The second phase includes a community plaza and retail space. Godfrey said construction of the foundations for the restaurants is done, and developer Boyer Company is starting on the above-ground construction.
    He said they should be finished and open early in 2008.
    Godfrey said all three restaurants are owned or developed by Top of Utah residents, “which we are very excited about. We have tried to keep this unique, so when visitors come from out of town, they are not going to the same places as in other cities.”
    Iggy’s Sports Grill, with corporate headquarters in Layton, has seven restaurants in Utah, including four in the Salt Lake City area, Logan, Layton and St. George. It has a varied menu and features a collection of sports memorabilia.
    MacCool’s Public House is an Irish pub-style restaurant and features Irish food.
    Sonora Grill, which features regional Mexican food, has a banquet room, private dining and a full bar. Godfrey said the owner, Steven Ballard, is originally from Ogden and has moved back to open this restaurant. Chef Chris Mortenson is relocating here from Las Vegas.
    In addition to the three restaurants, Godfrey said an announcement is near about a commercial building to be located west of the Wells Fargo bank building on the southeast corner of the Junction along 24th Street. He said the city expects to announce tenants in the next two weeks.
    Godfrey said the architecture of the buildings housing the new restaurants will be “very much of the old Ogden architecture. I think people will be pleased.”
    Hints of that architecture, which dates from the 1890s to 1920s, can be seen in the Wells Fargo building. Designs in the brick facings show the influence of the historical First Security bank building across the street, the current home of Wells Fargo’s downtown bank.
    Godfrey said the intention is to have the rest of the development follow a similar pattern, so the whole fits in with older businesses along Washington Boulevard.
    “The old architecture will be woven in,” he said. “The first phase is the funky, new design to make a splash, but the rest will be more traditional.”
    The new restaurants are the latest phase of redevelopment of the two-block area in central Ogden that used to house the Ogden City Mall.
    The Treehouse Museum was the first tenant, followed by the Salomon Center, which houses FatCats Fun Center, four restaurants, Gold’s Gym, Flowrider surf pool, the iRock climbing wall, and iFLY vertical wind tunnel, and the Megaplex 13 theaters.
    Future developments include a condominium development adjacent to the Treehouse Museum, and a new office building going up on the northeast corner of the Junction.
    That leaves only the space between that building and 23rd Street on the east side of the development.
    “We’re working on that as well,” Godfrey said. “It will be retail on the bottom floor and a hotel on top of that.”