Boise's Eighth & Main project moves forward

AN UPDATE ON THE BUILDING’S FEATURES

City review boards have approved the Eighth & Main project with 15 to 20 floors and at least 253,000 square feet of retail and office space. J. Thomas Ahlquist of Meridian, chief operating officer for Gardner Co., said the developer hasn’t decided how many floors to build. That will depend on potential tenants. Ahlquist may have some news on that soon. “We have had fantastic response on the building,” he said.

• The top floor features space for public meetings and receptions.

• The curtain wall is made of pieces of glass in a frame that hangs on the structure. At night, people outside will see alternating shaded and clear strips.

• Floors 6-14 are office space, including Zions Bank’s Idaho headquarters. There are 17,421 square feet on each floor.

• Three levels of parking will have 183 reserved parking stalls accessed via Levels 2 through 5 of the Eastman Garage next door. Iron-rod grills will decorate the window openings.

• Plans are to have the corner of Levels 1-5 light up at night like a lantern.

• Floors 1-2 are designed for upscale retail and restaurants, including a plaza on the second floor overlooking 8th Street. The limited space on 8th Street will have to accommodate restaurants’ outdoor seating, pedestrians and streetscape improvements. Boise’s urban renewal agency, requires a 4-foot-wide streetscape.

Architects say they will work to make the space pedestrian-friendly.

Who's paying?

Capital City Development Corp. has agreed to support Eighth & Main by refunding up to $4 million in property taxes that the completed development would pay.

On Monday, members of Occupy Boise attended a CCDC board meeting, asking what other uses had been considered for the $4 million.

CCDC and developers say the $4 million isn’t money CCDC actually has or would get if the project weren’t done.

Here’s how it works: Developers will pay for specific improvements, such as the remediation of the current excavation, and will pay impact fees.

When the project is finished, and its property taxes jump to $800,000 or $900,000 a year from $14,000 because of the increased value, CCDC will take a portion of the tax revenue it receives from the project and refund it to the developer over several years.

Three shades of granite. A second-floor plaza with an 8th Street balcony. A glass-curtain facade rising from the sixth floor.

Representatives of Gardner Co. say some features of their planned high-rise office building, Eighth & Main, will reflect aspects of nearby buildings. Others will make it stand out.

The Boise Planning and Zoning Commission and the Design Review Committee like what they have seen. Both approved the $60 million project last week.

Developers will work on engineering and architectural plans this winter and file for building permits in the spring.

The building will be constructed mostly of various granites, metals, glass and precast concrete. To help the building appear less imposing to a pedestrian on 8th Street and blend with buildings across the street, the top floors will be set back from the top edge of the bottom five floors.

Not everyone likes everything Gardner has proposed.

Boise architect Shaun Weston, who is not affiliated with the project, commends the developers and supports the project but is concerned about how close the building will sit to 8th Street.

Eighth & Main’s lower floors will be built to the edge of the building’s permissible boundary, next to the sidewalk. The historic 805 Idaho building across the alley on 8th sits back a bit, giving pedestrians more breathing space.

The building’s architects acknowledge that the sidewalk on 8th Street could be tight. One option could be to inset the front of the restaurants, providing more room for outside seating.

Weston also says the size of the lobby — 1,300 square feet — seems small. He thinks the glass-curtain wall doesn’t fit with other Downtown architecture and that access to the Eighth & Main garage levels through the adjacent Eastman Garage might lead to congestion.

Representatives of Eighth & Main say the lobby is a proper size and traffic studies show that the garage access will work well. As for the curtain wall: Though it is not a common element in Boise buildings, it’s appropriate for this project, they say.

Then there’s the matter of the birds.

Design Review Committee member Thomas Zabala, an architect, told the building’s architects that they may want to consider another material for a small portion of the facade on the top floor. The architects from Babcock Design Group of Salt Lake City plan to use something called Exterior Insulation and Finish Systems, which is used to insulate, decorate and protect exterior walls. The trouble is, woodpeckers are partial to it and can damage it, Zabala said.

Sandra Forester: 377-6464