Developer Dennis M. Baker has big plans for the heart of the Treasure Valley.
The 71-year-old Nampa native said Friday he is ready to build a $500 million development with retail, office and high-density residential buildings. Baker says that in terms of square footage, it would be would be one of the largest mixed-use projects ever built in Idaho.
Baker said he wants Pinebridge Med-Tech Business Park to attract high-paid health sciences-related jobs to Meridian. The development is part of a corridor that Mayor Tammy de Weerd and other Meridian officials identified two years ago for medical development.
"Health sciences is where it's at," Baker said. "And we need educated jobs. Not just call-center jobs."
Pinebridge would sit on nearly 200 acres in the center of the Treasure Valley, stretching from Eagle Road west to Locust Grove Road and from Fairview Avenue south past Pine Avenue. It would eventually bring about 4 million square feet of retail, office and residential housing to the area, Baker told the Idaho Statesman.
Baker said he is not worried that he is launching his project at a time when the economy is slowing.
"Some of the biggest successes have come during tough times," he said. "John Holland launched Holland Realty during the early 1980s when interest rates were 21 percent. Today it's the largest realty company in Idaho. If you have the right product, in any market, there will always be things you can do with your creativity."
Baker, who has spent the last 19 years purchasing the land, said the project could take up to 20 years to complete.
His company, DMB Investments LLC, has entered into a joint venture with the Ada County Highway District to turn Pine Street into a five-lane road that will extend west to Locust Grove. That will create a single path for motorists to go from Downtown Boise to Downtown Meridian along Americana Boulevard, Emerald Street, Executive Drive and Pine Avenue, he said.
ACHD is contributing its rights-of-way. DMB will begin work on the extension in two or three weeks, with completion by fall, at a cost of $3 million.
A 24,000-square-foot office building has already been built on the development site. DMB Investments will occupy 5,000 square feet and is in talks to lease the remaining 19,000 feet to area title companies and engineering and legal firms, said Matt Baker, vice president and secretary of DMB and Dennis Baker's son.
The next building may be a hotel. Matt Baker said the company has sold 3 acres for a proposed Staybridge Suites & Hotel, which is part of the InterContinental Hotels & Resorts chain.
DMB will seek local tenants by using Thornton Oliver Keller, a commercial real estate agency in Boise, and nonlocal tenants by using Coldwell Banker in Salt Lake City. DMB's marketing will emphasize health sciences and technology companies that want to be close to Idaho State University's nearby health profession education center, Dennis Baker said.
Pinebridge also would sit adjacent to what Meridian officials refer to as the city's health sciences and technology corridor, which includes St. Luke's Meridian Hospital, Crucial Technology, the Urology Institute and Bodybuilding.com.
Baker said his "dream" is to see a medical school located at Pinebridge that would work in association with ISU. He conceded, however, that creation of such a school has to begin with legislative action.
Dr. Arthur Vailas, president of ISU, agreed it was too early to talk about a new medical school but said bringing health-related jobs to the area would coincide with ISU's decision to move its graduate program in health professions to the old Jabil building in Meridian.
"The timing couldn't be better," Vailas told the Statesman. "This has the potential to add to the medical infrastructure in the Treasure Valley."
Phil Stiffler, Meridian's economic excellence coordinator, said the city is already being scrutinized by medical and medical-technology companies as a possible site for their operations.
"This project could give us the kind of assets these companies want," Stiffler said.
Matt Baker said DMB Investments will concentrate on the retail and office part of the project.
It proposes to sell 40 construction pads to a developer who would build as many as 1,000 high-density condominiums and apartments. He declined to name the developers the company is in talks with.
Dennis Baker is known in local commercial development circles.
His company built the 150,000-square-foot North Channel Center at the northwest corner of State Street and Eagle Road, across from the Hilton Garden Inn.
His ventures into residential development include the high-end Two Rivers and Island Woods subdivisions in Eagle, which sit across from each other between State Street and Chinden Boulevard.
Joe Estrella: 377-6465
