By the end of October, the Treasure Valley Institute for Children's Arts is set to complete the first phase of its massive restoration of the former Immanuel Methodist Episcopal Church in the North End, stabilizing the roof and walls and cleaning out the residue of methamphetamine in the building.

"We have no legal requirement to (remove the meth residue). We volunteered into it," said founder and Artistic Director Jon Swarthout. "Being a center for children, we want to be above reproach on this."

The nonprofit Treasure Valley Institute for Children's Arts, or TrICA, plans to open a children's art education center, with space for dance classes, performances and lessons in musical, visual, theater and culinary arts.

For now, TrICA runs programs in schools and open classes in partnership with the YMCA. The organization has a dance troupe for kids and offers a variety of summer camps in the arts.

"What the church will allow us to do is offer integrated, full-day arts programs around a central cultural theme - for example, the cultures of West Africa," said Executive Director Nellie Baker.

But several residents near the church have universal neighborhood concerns: that the increased traffic, noise and trash will destroy the residential character of the neighborhood.

They also worry that the upkeep on the 100-year-old church after it is renovated, plus the overhead and maintenance on the house TrICA owns next door, will be so costly that the organization will have to host large events every month to pay for it.

The City Council will decide on TrICA's conditional-use permit after a public hearing on Nov. 10.

Under normal circumstances, the Planning and Zoning Commission signs off on conditional-use permits. TrICA needs an exception to operate a school in a church in a residential area, said Planning Director Hal Simmons. The City Council decides the exceptions.

DRIVING IN CIRCLES

As part of the conditional-use permit process, the North End Neighborhood Association wrote a letter to the Planning and Zoning Commission supporting TrICA's work to preserve the old church. That support is contingent on the city mandating conditions listed in the letter.

"Part of what conditions do is give TrICA an opportunity to make it work there, but we still have a ton of unanswered questions," said neighborhood President Don Plum. "The people nearest have some legitimate concerns."

In the letter, the association spelled out the details of the parking district to be created within eight weeks of the approval of the conditional-use permit. The district is to ensure that residents can park in front of their homes, Plum said.

"TrICA will be responsive to all conditions placed upon the organization, including parking," Baker said.

Parking has long been a problem in Hyde Park. But 14th Street has been spared much of the congestion of the 13th Street commercial district and 15th Street because it's not a through street - North Junior High is at one end and the other is a dead end.

TrICA already has an agreement with Albertsons at 17th and State streets for 50 parking spots for events, Baker said. The organization also has secured about 100 parking spaces at a strip mall across 17th Street, she said.

TrICA plans to provide shuttle service from those parking lots to events at the church to encourage people to park in the lots, Swarthout said.

NEIGHBORS' REACTIONS ARE MIXED

Kelly Farris lives on Brumback around the corner from the church. She's not worried about parking and hopes most people will walk to TrICA programs and events. When she moved to the neighborhood 15 years ago, it already was noisy, she said.

"The traffic is already here. It's here to stay," she said. "TrICA is bringing the kind of people we want to the neighborhood."

But Claudia Brandes doesn't want all those people. She has lived on 14th Street, next door to the house TrICA bought, since 1994.

Brandes is a single mom who believes in the importance of art education. Her two kids attend art classes at Fort Boise Community Center on scholarship.

Still, she doesn't understand why a nonprofit group with classes for kids would need to be open seven days a week, unless they were planning to hold a lot of other events.

"I'm not saying art isn't important. If it were a more modest enterprise, it might be tolerable," Brandes said. "Twenty events (a year) is more than one a month. It's nice to dream a huge dream, but at the same time, you're going to have a huge impact."

Baker said only four to six performances a year will bring up to 350 people to the building at once. The rest will bring fewer.

"We want to be a neighbor," she said. "We're not coming in to cause trouble."

DESTROYING A BIT OF HISTORY?

In December, Karena Youtz launched the Save 14th Street campaign when she found out TrICA was considering demolition of the house it bought next to the church for a parking lot. Youtz has lived across the street from the church for 14 years.

On July 27, the Historic Preservation Commission approved demolition of the two back wings and the garage to make room for eight parking spaces. Youtz will appeal that decision at the Nov. 10 City Council meeting.

"We want to save the house," said Youtz, who worries that once changes to the house are made and the parking lot is added, the building will permanently become a commercial structure.

She also wants the lot line between the house and the church restored, a condition the Neighborhood Association listed in its letter to the Planning and Zoning Commission.

If TrICA can't raise the money it needs to complete its vision, attaching the fate of the house to the fate of the church will increase disinvestment in the neighborhood, Youtz said.

TrICA bought the house because it needed parking, Baker said.

"We made a compromise - keep the building and turn it into a storybook cottage and put eight parking spaces behind the cottage not visible from the street," she said.

Since the organization was not able to demolish the building to create a parking lot, TrICA is asking the city for a reduction to the parking requirement, Swarthout said. City Code requires one parking spot for every three students at a commercial school. The school has a capacity for 60 people, so the city requires 20 parking spaces. The City Council will decide that on Nov. 10.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

If everything goes according to plans, at the end of October the old church will be a shell of its former self - no heating, plumbing or electrical wiring. The second and more costly phase of the project is the transformation of the church into studios, stages and classrooms.

Swarthout estimates TrICA will need to raise $3.5 million more to complete the project and open its doors by 2013.

How fast that happens will be determined by fundraising, Swarthout said.

The organization plans to launch a capital campaign next year, he said.

Bethann Stewart: 377-6393