The plan South Ogden
A small area plan for the Washington Boulevard strip at the north end of the city
The South Ogden City Center plan, and the boulevard it is built around
South Ogden is remaking the commercial strip along Washington Boulevard between 36th and 40th Street, a stretch of about sixty one acres anchored by a grocery store and an aging strip mall, into a walkable center with housing, shops and a public plaza. The city adopted the plan in 2026 and, while it rewrites its development codes to match, put a temporary hold on new development applications in the city center zones. If you own or are buying near that corridor, it is worth understanding before you make an offer.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
South Ogden's city center is the stretch of Washington Boulevard at the north end of town, between about 36th and 40th Street, anchored by a Macey's grocery store and the strip mall beside it. The city has no historic main street, so that commercial corridor is the closest thing it has to a center. In 2026 the city adopted a plan to remake it as a walkable district with a mix of housing and shops, a public plaza, and safer ways to cross the boulevard, and it put a temporary hold on new development applications there while it updates the codes. Nothing is built yet, and any single project still has to be proposed and approved, so if a purchase near the corridor turns on what can be built or changed, the South Ogden planning office is the place to confirm where things stand.
The middle of the city
What South Ogden's city center actually is, and where it sits
South Ogden never had a downtown. It grew as a bench suburb between Ogden and the freeway, and its center of gravity has always been the commercial run of Washington Boulevard rather than a courthouse square or an old main street. The City Center plan draws a box around the north end of that run, roughly 36th Street down to 40th Street, and calls it the place the city will treat as its center from here on. City Hall sits two blocks east on Adams Avenue, close enough to walk but not part of the retail strip itself.
What is on that ground today is ordinary and aging: a Macey's grocery store, a strip mall, surface parking, and the boulevard running through the middle of it. When the strip mall's Big Lots closed, it left a large empty box on Washington Boulevard, and that vacancy is a good part of what pushed the city to plan rather than wait. The plan's own picture is of a smaller, denser, more walkable district built on the same land, with a central plaza where the parking lots are now.
The hard part is the boulevard itself. Washington Boulevard is US-89, and through this north stretch it runs at forty miles an hour and carries close to thirty thousand vehicles on a typical day. Farther south, past about 5150 South, it widens to a fifty five mile an hour highway and the traffic roughly doubles. A center that means to be walkable has to get people across a road built to move cars quickly, which is why improving connectivity and safety across Washington Boulevard is one of the plan's stated aims and the one that will be hardest to deliver.
The details
How the center earns
A residential city with a commercial corridor, not a job center
It helps to know what South Ogden is before you read what the plan wants it to become. There are two ways to count work here and they point in different directions. State labor figures count roughly seven thousand nine hundred jobs located inside the city; the Census counts roughly nine thousand employed residents who live here and mostly drive somewhere else to work. Those are different measures, and a page that mixes them makes the city sound more self contained than it is.
The city is honest about this on its own economic pages. It names its big employment anchors as a hospital, a university and an air force base, and all three sit outside the city limits. So the day to day economy of South Ogden is the boulevard: the grocery, the dealerships, the banks and the restaurants strung along Washington and down toward the Harrison Boulevard junction at the south end. That is exactly the ground the City Center plan is trying to strengthen, because a commercial corridor that people drive through is a weaker thing than a center people walk to.
It also explains why open land is not the answer here. Two of the largest single pieces of ground inside the city are the Ogden Golf and Country Club and a memorial park, which together hold well over a hundred acres. The city is not going to grow outward onto empty fields, because there are almost none left. What it has to work with is the strip it already built, which is the whole premise of the plan.
Room to build
A city with almost nothing left to build on, deciding what to do with what it has
South Ogden covers about three and nine tenths square miles and it is essentially full. The county roll shows no large undeveloped tract, only a scatter of small vacant parcels. The median South Ogden home was built around 1979, and the city grew in two waves about thirty years apart: an older northern half from the mid century, and a southern half that filled in through the late 1990s and early 2000s on land the city annexed south of Highway 89. There is no third wave of empty ground waiting.
That is the plain reason the City Center plan reads the way it does. It is a redevelopment plan, not a growth plan. Every change it imagines happens on ground that already has a building, a parking lot or a road on it, which is slower, more expensive and more contested than building on open land, and which is why a plan and a temporary hold on applications go together. A city with room to spare does not need to pause; a city rebuilding its one commercial strip does.
One practical note for a buyer looking at a specific address. South Ogden is not a single tax area. The county's records show more than one tax district inside the city, so the certified property tax rate can differ from one part of town to another. The Weber County Clerk and Auditor publishes the current rate for each area, and it is worth checking the rate for the parcel you are actually considering rather than assuming one figure covers the whole city.
The plan
What the plan sets out to do, in the city's own words
The City Center plan is a focused small area plan that builds on the city's 2023 General Plan, and the city gives it four plain aims: to agree a shared vision for what the city center should be, to find realistic chances to redevelop and reinvest in that ground, to make it safer and easier to move through and across Washington Boulevard, and to give both the city and private owners clear guidance about what belongs there. City planner Alika Murphy has described it as bringing a General Plan goal to life with businesses and residents in the room.
The picture the plan paints is a genuine center rather than a strip. It sketches a mix of housing above and beside shops, a central outdoor plaza for markets, concerts and holiday gatherings, and a walkable stretch along Kiesel Avenue between 37th and 39th. The planning documents float what the area could eventually hold, on the order of a thousand homes and several hundred thousand square feet of stores and offices. Those numbers are the plan's illustration of what is possible on that land, not a schedule and not a promise; each piece still has to be proposed, funded and approved on its own.
That distinction matters for anyone reading this to decide something. A plan tells you the direction a city intends to push. It does not tell you what will be standing on a given corner in five years, and this one is candid that the timeline is uncertain. The useful way to hold it is as the city's stated intent for the boulevard, tested one project at a time.
The development hold
The temporary hold on new development, and what it means near an address
Alongside the plan, the city put a temporary hold, a moratorium, on new development applications in the city center zones along and near Washington Boulevard. The reason is ordinary and sensible: the city is rewriting its development codes to match the new plan, and a hold keeps someone from filing a project today under the old rules that the city is about to change. The published hold covered the city center and the neighboring corridor zones and was set to run about six months while the code work is done.
A hold like that is a moving target on purpose. It can be extended if the code work runs long, or lifted early if it finishes, and its exact edges follow zone lines rather than street addresses. That is why the honest instruction is not to guess from the word moratorium but to ask. If a purchase near the corridor depends on what can be applied for, built, added or changed on a parcel, the South Ogden planning office at City Hall can tell you whether the hold still applies to that address and when it is expected to lift.
If a South Ogden purchase turns on what can be built or changed near Washington Boulevard, call the city before you write the offer, not after. The city center carries both a new plan and a temporary hold on development applications, and both can affect what a parcel is allowed to become. The South Ogden planning office at City Hall, 3950 Adams Avenue, can confirm the zone, the current status of the hold and the rules in force for a specific address. Put the answer in writing if it matters to the price.
If you live here
What the plan means for a home near the corridor
For most of South Ogden, on the quiet residential streets away from Washington Boulevard, the plan changes little in the near term. The closer a home sits to the north end of the boulevard, the more it is worth paying attention, because redevelopment there could reshape the strip over the coming years, for better in the form of shops and a plaza within walking distance, and for more traffic and construction in the meantime. It is a trade to weigh on purpose rather than discover after a move.
At the public meetings on the plan, residents pressed on the things that touch a household directly: traffic and parking as the area gets denser, and whether redevelopment could put pressure on people who already own property along the strip. Those are fair questions and the room to raise them is the city council, which meets on the first and third Tuesday of each month at six in the evening in the chambers at City Hall and takes three minutes of public comment at the start of each meeting. The planning commission meets separately, and for a question about one parcel the planning office is the faster route.
One thing the center will not be is a scenic one. The mountain bench above town, with its trailheads and canyon access, sits inside the city of Ogden, not South Ogden, so reaching it means a short drive. The center this plan is about is a commercial one, built around the boulevard, and that is the right expectation to carry into it. What an address here asks of you otherwise, the services, the schools and the run into Ogden, is covered on the page on moving here and on the page on getting around.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Keep reading
More of South Ogden, street by street
Getting around
Washington Boulevard and 40th Street
The boulevard the plan is built around, and how it moves through the city, speed and traffic and all.
Read the guideMoving here
Moving to South Ogden
Its own police, fire and water, the schools inside the line, and one city bill for four services.
Read the guideThe Nature Park
The Nature Park and Burch Creek
The city's one real trail system, along the creek that gave South Ogden its first name.
Read the guideThe parks
The parks, the dog park and the skate park
The eight city parks, the one dog park and the skate park, and what each one has.
Read the guideThe June weekend
South Ogden Days and the month around it
The city's own June festival at Friendship Park, the parade, the car show and the fireworks.
Read the guideThe whole set
South Ogden, in full
A bench city between Ogden and the freeway, and every South Ogden guide in one place.
Open the hubQuick answers
The City Center plan, answered
It is a small area plan the city adopted in 2026 for the north end of town, the stretch of Washington Boulevard between about 36th and 40th Street anchored by the Macey's grocery store and the strip mall beside it. It builds on the city's 2023 General Plan and sets out to turn that commercial strip into a walkable center with a mix of housing and shops, a public plaza, and safer ways to cross the boulevard.
At the north end of the city, along Washington Boulevard between roughly 36th and 40th Street, a stretch of about sixty one acres anchored by a grocery store and an aging strip mall. South Ogden has no historic main street, so this commercial corridor is the closest thing the city has to a center, and City Hall sits two blocks east on Adams Avenue.
While the city rewrites its development codes to match the plan, it put a temporary hold on new development applications in the city center zones along and near Washington Boulevard. A hold like that can be extended or lifted early, so if a purchase turns on what can be built or changed on a parcel here, confirm the current status with the South Ogden planning office before you write an offer.
The plan sketches what the city center could hold over time, on the order of a thousand homes and several hundred thousand square feet of shops and offices, along with a central plaza and a walkable stretch along Kiesel Avenue. Those figures are the plan's picture of what is possible, not a schedule or a promise, and any single project still has to be proposed, approved and built.
If your home or a home you are considering sits in or near the Washington Boulevard corridor between 36th and 40th, the plan and the temporary development hold are worth asking about directly. At public meetings residents raised traffic, parking, and whether redevelopment could pressure existing owners. The planning office at City Hall can tell you what applies to a specific address.
It depends which figure you mean, and the two are easily confused. State labor data counts roughly 7,900 jobs located inside the city, while the Census counts roughly 9,000 employed residents who live here. The city names its big employment anchors as a hospital, a university and an air force base, and all three sit outside the city limits, so South Ogden is a residential city with a commercial corridor rather than a job center.
Very little. The city covers about 3.9 square miles with almost no vacant ground left, and the median South Ogden home was built around 1979. The southern half filled in during the late 1990s and early 2000s on land annexed south of Highway 89. That is why the City Center plan is a redevelopment plan for ground that already has buildings on it, not a plan for open land.
The South Ogden City Council meets on the first and third Tuesday of each month at six in the evening in the council chambers at City Hall, 3950 Adams Avenue, and takes public comment at the start of each meeting, limited to three minutes a speaker. The planning commission meets separately. For a question about a specific parcel, the planning office is the faster route.
The city's 2023 General Plan, which the City Center plan builds on and puts into practice for one part of town. The general plan has been updated since, on moderate income housing timelines, which is part of why a focused center plan in a mostly built out city carries a housing component at all.
Buying near the boulevard? Get the plan and the hold checked first
The City Center plan and the temporary development hold both change what a parcel near Washington Boulevard is allowed to become, and neither is something to guess at from a listing. If a South Ogden decision turns on what can be built, added or changed nearby, the useful first step is a call to the city planning office to confirm the zone and the current status. Tell me what you are weighing and I will connect you with a Weber and Morgan partner agent who can put that question into the contract properly, and I will stay on the financing side of it.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
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