Ex-mobster’s restaurant. Lucky Peak cell service. 10 business stories to catch up on

The top 10 Idaho business stories of the week:

1. The Boise City Council is looking to buy the former Franklin School site where Maverik Inc. had planned to build a gas station at West Franklin Road and South Orchard Street. “The property has great potential for housing,” said Mike Journee, communications director for Boise Mayor David Bieter.

2. The owners of a Downtown Boise property where a never-completed Rascal Flatts restaurant was supposed to go were shocked to learn that a former Mafia soldier called the shots for the project. Frank Capri, whose actual name is Frank Gioia Jr., was a hidden partner whose name was never disclosed in documents for the Boise restaurant or other Rascal Flatts project. Gardner Co., which owns the restaurant space in the Grove Plaza, off South Capitol Boulevard, said it lost about $70,000 on the Rascal Flatts project.

3. Lucky Peak State Park and the stretch of Idaho 21 alongside it could get cellular phone service at last. Maverick Towers, a Boise company, is preparing to put up five towers in the stretch of Highway 21 between Discovery Park near Lucky Peak Dam and Robie Creek.

4. The company that owns the Even Stevens sandwich shop in Downtown Boise has filed for bankruptcy. But the restaurant will stay open, and its employees will continue to get their paychecks, Even Stevens Chief Restructuring Officer Brooks Pickering said.

5. Like to sing? A Portland company plans to open a karaoke lounge in the former Urban Outfitters space in Downtown Boise. The business, Voicebox, will open at 328 S. 8th St. in BoDo. That storefront has been closed since Urban Outfitters moved to The Village at Meridian in summer 2017.

6. The Village Charter School in Boise is facing the possibility of closure after years of financial losses and mounting debt. Idaho’s Public Charter School Commission, responsible for regulating most Idaho charters, recommended The Village board plan for how to close the 490-student school in an orderly fashion, if it can’t rectify a perilous financial situation.

7. Regal Edwards 21 & IMAX theaters, 7701 W. Overland Road, Boise, is outfitting two of its theaters with 4DX technology, which features seats that move and shake, flashing lights, puffs of smoke and scented vapors that sync up with on-screen action. This is a thing: Since 2010, cinemas around the country have been equipping their theaters with the technology.

8. The five-day Treefort Music Festival trails the Albertsons Boise Open golf tournament in its economic impact on the city: $11 million vs. $39 million in 2018. That’s according to the Boise Convention & Visitors Bureau. But this month’s Treefort boosted hotel occupancies as it drew revelers from all over the Northwest.

9. Starting teacher pay will increase to $40,000 annually in Idaho. Gov. Brad Little signed into law a bill to boost starting teacher pay from $36,000 today to $38,500 next year and to $40,000 the year after that.

10. A fire destroyed the India Fashion and Grocery store at the intersection of Overland Road and Latah Street on the Boise Bench. The Boise Fire Department said the business was using a series of surge protectors in its office that malfunctioned and sparked the fire.

And here are four more stories of interest:

▪ The Idaho Legislature is weighing two very different bills on how to expand Medicaid to Idaho’s working poor. Republican leaders say the big question they’re grappling with is this: Should Idahoans seeking Medicaid coverage be offered work training? Or should they have to report their job status in order to get taxpayer-funded health insurance?

▪ A bill that would require a citizen vote before Boise could spend urban renewal money on a proposed stadium and new main library has come back to life. A legislative committee voted to send the bill to the full Senate after the committee chairman, who had been sitting on the bill, agreed to have it considered by the committee.

▪ As the Idaho Legislature winds down for the session, a proposed sales tax exemption on equipment for data centers is falling by the wayside, this one . Several similar attempts failed over the past few years, despite backing by business groups like the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Idaho Technology Council.

▪ The latest in a series of housing projects aimed largely at young professionals and Boise State University students would add 236 apartments across the Boise River and Broadway Avenue from the campus’s eastern side. The six-story Park Place apartments, proposed by Gardner Co., would be located at 749 E. Park Boulevard, across the Broadway Bridge from campus, half a mile from Albertsons Stadium.

Statesman reporters John Sowell, Kate Talerico, Hayley Harding, Audrey Dutton, Katy Moeller and Ruth Brown, the Idaho Business Review, Idaho Education News and The Associated Press contributed,

This story was originally published March 26, 2019 at 3:05 PM.