A new surge in downtown Boise hotel-building: 14-story national-brand hotel planned

A surface parking lot on the west side of Grove Street could become the site of a 14-story, 285-room hotel. The beginning stages of a proposal have been filed with the city.

A “Marriott Dual Brand Hotel” is being pitched at 1011 W. Grove St., on the block between 10th and 11th streets and Grove and Front streets.

PB Boise N LLC is the owner of the parcel in the filing, which covers part of the parking lot. PB’s manager is Jared Smith, whose company is Eagle-based Pennbridge Capital, whose Pennbridge Lodging owns the Marriott Residence Inn downtown.

In an interview with the Idaho Statesman, Smith said the two brands are AC Hotels and Element. The brands would share a lobby. AC would have 160 rooms and Element would have 125.

A high-end bar on the 14th floor of the AC would be open to the public and have an indoor-outdoor feel.

Smith described AC as having a classic modern design with European elegance and flair. A high-end bar is a requirement for AC hotels, he said. Element has fully equipped kitchens to offer extended stays.

“We think bringing two more Marriott brands to the downtown core will elevate hospitality that’s here,” Smith said by phone.

The site, for now, is a surface parking lot. The second, third and fourth floors are planned to be parking, with about 300 spots.

Smith told the Statesman that a multifamily development would likely be built on the Front Street side of what is now the surface parking lot.

Pennbridge bought the block in January 2020 from the Yanke family, or Dan Yanke & Sons LLC, according to Ada County records. Last summer, Pennbridge sold the southern half of the parking lot to Front Street Holdings LLC, according to Ada County Records. Front Street Holdings is a Washington-based company, BoiseDev previously reported.

The parking lot was home to the Boise Farmers Market for the market’s first five years before moving in 2020 to a new site five blocks to the southwest.

Though costs are still being worked out, Smith said he hopes construction can begin in spring 2023, with construction likely taking a year and a half.

Smith said his company identified a three-block radius around the Grove Plaza as the prime location for a new hotel.

“We spent a lot of time looking for dirt, and we didn’t want to do it in a secondary location,” Smith said. “We wanted to be in the downtown core. It’s such a walkable town, and the restaurants are so great, and the bar life and the scene and everything else is so fantastic.”

Hundreds of hotel rooms have been added to downtown in the past five years.

The opening of the 185-room Marriott Residence Inn, 400 S. Capitol Blvd., in October 2017 was part of a surge of hotel openings that year and in 2018 that ushered in a golden era for hotels downtown, boosting the room count by nearly 50%, according to previous Statesman reporting.

The others were the 111-room Inn at 500 Capitol, the 150-room Hyatt Place at 1024 W. Bannock St., and the 175-room Hilton Garden Inn at the southeast corner of 13th and Front streets.

Now another, smaller surge is underway in a two-block area near downtown’s heart.

Hendricks Commercial Properties has started work on an eight-story boutique hotel on what is now the parking lot of The Owyhee apartments on the corner of 11th and Grove streets. The Hotel Renegade is planned to have 122 rooms and to be operated by Geronimo Hospitality Group of Beloit, Wisconsin.

Nest Partners, of Bozeman, Montana, has started to renovate the old Safari Inn into the 67-room Sparrow Hotel at 1070 W. Grove St., on the east side of 11th Street, across from Owyhee Tavern and the Hotel Renegade site.

Smith’s new hotel would be one block away from the Hotel Renegade and right across Grove Street from the old Safari/new Sparrow. Smith’s site is one block north of Simplot Co.’s corporate headquarters.

The latest filing is a request for a neighborhood meeting list, meaning the project’s developer wants to compile addresses to then hold a neighborhood meeting as the project is being planned.

This story was originally published June 17, 2022 at 11:14 AM with the headline "A new surge in downtown Boise hotel-building: 14-story national-brand hotel planned."