Ogden, Clearfield, Salt Lake City To Get Transit-Oriented Developments Around Frontrunner Stations

CLEARFIELD, Utah – For Mayor Mark Shepherd, word that Clearfield was chosen as a city to help create one of several Transit Oriented Developments, or TOD’s around UTA Frontrunner stations, was news he’d been waiting about a dozen years to hear.

 

“It’s great news for the city. We’ve been working on this for so long,” Shepherd said. “We’ve put in so much effort on our staff’s part to come together with a true, acceptable plan.”

 

Shepherd says he started pushing for Clearfield to be chosen for one of the developments while he was a planning commissioner. Ultimately, controversy at UTA over the selection process about a decade ago, and legislation passed in 2018 to make the process more fair delayed that process. Now Clearfield, Ogden, and Salt Lake City’s central station will be among those to get the TOD’s over the next 10 to 20 years. UTA’s focus is more on supporting ridership, while cutting down on congestion and pollution.

 

“Utah is growing fast,” UTA’s Senior Manager over real estate and transit-oriented development, Paul Drake said. “We need to do some really collaborative development, planning around these stations to make to make sure that there’s opportunities for people to live, work, shop, and not have to use their car.”

 

In addition, the hope is for the TOD’s to help with Utah’s increasing demand for housing.

 

“There’s a large contingent of people who are seeking out this kind of lifestyle,” Drake said. “Were they can live near public transit, and access the system and get where they need to without using their car.”

 

Shepherd says the development helps support the city council’s bigger vision for Clearfield’s future, in building sort of a new city center.

 

“We should get what we’re looking for,” Shepherd said. “We’ll certainly have more housing there, that’s what UTA needs. We’ll have office space there, we’ll have retail there, and there’s a recreational component that has to fit in there as well.”

 

Ogden’s Chief Administrative officer, Mark Johnson said the news is a big win for them too, adding that the development will fit well with the city’s ongoing efforts to reclaim downtown, and re-birth the city.