Boise is a "city of choice" for The North Face, regarded as one of the premier makers of outdoor gear and clothing. The national brand will open its first store to meet national environmental and energy-efficiency standards in Downtown Boise's historic Mode Building at 8th and Idaho streets.

If all goes well, the store will be open by Thanksgiving, Chicago developer David Baum said.

Baum and his brother Douglas' Baum Realty Group bought the block between Idaho and Bannock streets and 8th and 9th streets, including the Mode Building, in 2006. They have filled its retail spaces with a mix of national boutique retailers such as Chico's, See Jane Run and Anthropologie, and locally owned restaurants and specialty stores like Grape Escape and Pottery Gourmet. The pottery retailer has relocated from BoDo to 811 W. Bannock St. and will open Saturday.

David Baum was in Boise on Thursday to break The North Face news.

"This confirms something I've known for a while, that Boise is a city of choice," David Baum said. "It is a growing outdoor capital in the U.S., and this is the right retailer for this space."

The North Face, based in San Leandro, Calif., makes high-tech - and high-end - gear and clothing for mountaineers, climbers, snow-sport and endurance athletes and explorers. Known as a selective retailer, it has only 21 stores nationally. The closest are in Portland and Seattle.

Coming to Boise makes sense, said Lindsay Rice, vice president of retail for The North Face.

"Boise has been nationally recognized as one of the most active outdoor communities, which makes it a perfect fit for The North Face," Rice said.

Baum acknowledged that this is a difficult time economically to embark on the project.

"I can tell you on a national level people are pulling back. Getting people to sign deals is like pulling teeth," he said. "For us - and by that I mean, for Baum and for Boise - getting this to happen, despite what's happening in the macro world, makes this even more significant."

The estimated $2 million project will restore the Mode's facade. It will also reshape the inside to accommodate the nearly 8,665-square-foot, two-story space that will occupy the south half of the building, including the space above the Grape Escape wine bar.

The Mode department store was built in 1908 and went out of business in October 1991. It survived a fire June 18, 1958, that took out the row of second-floor windows on the Idaho Street side. Those windows will be restored.

The Baums specialize in adaptive reuse and say they have a strong interest in environmental construction and design. The renovated Mode building will meet gold-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council, David Baum said.

"The greenest development you can do is work with an existing building as opposed to tearing it down and filling up a landfill and the energy it will take to recreate it," Baum said.

Baum said he will work with Boise architectural and engineering firm CSHQA and Boise architect Sherry McKibben.

This project is also about "building synergy," Baum said. He said he worked on this deal for a few years to attract businesses that would fulfill his vision of the block as a city center.

The interest of other national retailers in the site has been piqued since The North Face has signed on, he said.

The North Face will be a like a shot of vitamin B-12 to the Downtown economy, said Grape Escape owner Pug Ostling.

"That's what downtowns can do better than suburbia. We create an economic and cultural center," Ostling said. "We have the culture side already with the Greenbelt, The Grove, theaters, museums, the library, the Flicks. We're raising the civility of the city."

The North Face and Anthropologie are retailers known for seeking to be part of a downtown shopping experience, said Karen Sander, executive director of the Downtown Boise Association.

"It's definitely exciting when a retailer of this caliber is willing to become a business neighbor in Boise," she said. "It speaks volumes about our Downtown."

Dana Oland: 377-6442