Downtown Boise developers worry: ‘We’re on Titanic.’ But see what they’re building now
The streets of downtown Boise are far emptier than they were just six months ago. But the city’s skyline is still filling out.
Despite the economic slowdown wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, cranes are still rising downtown. As big buildings — all planned before the virus struck Idaho — are completed in the next two years, Boise will add 820 apartments, including 45 reserved for low-income renters. It also will add 191,000 square feet of office space and 11,000 square feet of retail space.
But some developers say that COVID-19 has created uncertainties about what the future of downtown will look like afterward.
How many restaurants will survive? If employers mandate longer work-from-home policies, will the new offices created downtown remain empty? If more Silicon Valley and New York tech workers gain approval to work remotely, how will their in-migration affect the need for downtown housing?
Building permits for commercial construction in Boise have fallen by more than one-third so far this year compared with 2019, to $192 million from January through July, from $317 million in the same period last year.
“It’s really hard right now to decide what you’re going to build,” said Clay Carley, a longtime downtown Boise landowner and developer. “You have to ask, what kind of future will Boise enter into?”
Said David Wali, executive vice president of Gardner Co.: “We’re on the Titanic. And we haven’t yet seen the full damage to the hull.”
For now, the violinists are playing on deck.
“We’re unaware of any of the significant downtown projects stopping,” said Cody Riddle, Boise’s director of current planning.
Here’s the latest on what’s going up downtown:
5th and Grove, 6th and Grove
Carley is moving forward with two apartment buildings on Grove Street between 5th and 6th streets that he is developing with Chance Hobbs in McCall, Dean Pape of deChase Miksis in Boise, and Bill Truax of Boise’s Galena Opportunity Fund.
At 116 S. 6th St., the team is using a federal tax credit program to finance a seven-story apartment building with 60 apartments, of which 45 will go to people making between 30% to 60% of Ada County’s median income. Rents in the low-income, subsidized apartments will go for $343 to $730 for a studio, $507 to $783 for a one-bedroom, and $606 to $937 for a two-bedroom.
Boise will also pitch in $1 million through the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, an affordable housing fund that also relies on federal money.
The affordable apartment building will be called the Thomas Logan in honor of the Boise’s first postmaster, who later became mayor. His one-story adobe house sat on the lot from the late 1860s until 1971, when the house was moved to Julia Davis Park and added to the National Register of Historic Places.
On the same block, the team is building a six-story, 114 unit building at 512 W. Grove St. The developers plan to rent 50 of the units at “workforce” rates — marketed to those earning close to the area median income. Rents will go for around $1,300 a month for a one-bedroom apartment.
On the ground floor will be a food hall, with various restaurateurs operating small kiosks.
The building will be called The Lucy, after Lucy Garatea, a Basque immigrant who came to Boise in 1920 and worked at the Star Rooming House at 512 W. Idaho St.
Carley’s team broke ground on the site this summer. Construction is estimated to be finished by winter of 2021.
Home2Suites
Nearby, Carley is wrapping up construction of the seven-story, 138-room Home2Suites by Hilton on Front Street between 5th and 6th streets. The project broke ground in February 2019. A 550-stall parking garage attached to the project opened in March.
The hotel will be owned and operated by Raymond Management Co., which also owns the 186-room Hampton Inn & Suites at 495 S. Capitol Boulevard.
Carley said he expects the hotel to open by winter 2020.
Boise Caddis
River Caddis Development Corp. of East Lansing, Michigan, has been working on an eight-story building with 173 apartments, 3,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and an interior parking lot just south of the Ada County Courthouse at 3rd and Myrtle streets.
The apartments will include a mix of studios and one and two-bedroom units. The parking lot, which will be owned by Ada County, will include space for 400 cars and 192 bicycles. Residents will be able to rent parking spaces from the county.
River Caddis Director of Development John McGraw said the firm is still searching for a tenant for the ground floor.
The project is estimated to be completed in July 2021.
The Cartee
Since October 2019, construction has been underway on the Cartee, an apartment building at 4th and Broad Streets by Roundhouse, a developer with offices in Los Angeles and Boise.
Of its 161 units, five will be ground level live-work units, which will include commercial and living spaces. Fifteen will be “micro” units, 27 will be studios, 60 one-bedroom units, and 54 two-bedroom units.
The building will also include 5,400 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
Casey Lynch, CEO of Roundhouse, said he hopes to open the building in late 2021.
The project will be similar to The Fowler, a 159-apartment building that Roundhouse opened in 2018 just a block away, at 505 W. Broad St.
Whitewater and Main
Roundhouse is also working on a 7-acre apartment and retail development on the corner of Whitewater Park Boulevard and Main Street, at the site where former Mayor David Bieter had once hoped to build a sports stadium.
The project, when fully complete, is planned to include around 400 apartments, a big-box retailer and several smaller shops.
Lynch said that his firm is designing the project’s first phase on the corner of 27th Street and Fairview Avenue. It will include an extension of 28th Street through the property.
The first phase is expected to include 130 apartment units and 15,000 square feet of ground floor retail and “building amenity space.” Lynch said he hopes to break ground sometime in mid-2021.
Myrtle and Avenue A
In March 2019, the St. Louis-based Collegiate Development Group said it planned to build a seven-story, 258-unit apartment building with a 358-space parking garage and 7,800 square feet of commercial space. The building would go in at the intersection of Avenue A and Myrtle Street — a parking lot between WinCo and Whole Foods.
But more than a year later, dirt on the parking lot hasn’t turned.
The city approved the project in June 2019. In April, representatives of CDG asked for permission to wait until June 2021 to complete its development agreement with the city because of coronavirus-related delays.
Representatives from CDG did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The city still expects the project to move forward.
Park Place Apartments
Near the Greenbelt and Boise State University, Gardner Co. is halfway through construction of a 236-unit apartment building that will wrap around a six-story parking garage with 356 spaces.
The building will include studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, with studios starting at about $900 per month.
The site is at 749 E. Park Blvd., immediately east of the Ram Restaurant and Brewery, across the Broadway Bridge from campus, not far from Albertsons Stadium. The site, owned by the Harry W. Morrison Foundation, had previously been a parking lot.
The project, estimated around $40 million, may end up coming in under budget, said David Wali, executive vice president of Gardner Co.
He said he hopes to finish construction in July 2021.
The Vanguard
After some setbacks, the Vanguard is slowly going up near Boise’s Basque Block.
Visum Development Group, based in Ithaca, New York, broke ground on the eight-story, 76-unit building in February. Construction paused temporarily but started again this summer. The building, at the corner of 6th and Front Street, required tearing down the one-story BizPrint shop that had previously sat there.
The Vanguard will also include 2,596 square feet of ground-floor retail. Amenities will include a rooftop terrace with a fire pit and grill, a resident lounge and co-working space.
Laura Mattos, Visum’s chief operating officer, said Visum plans to finish construction in August 2021.
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11th and Idaho
The Boise-based commercial real estate developer Rafanelli & Nahas broke ground last August on a 10-story office building at the northwest corner of 11th and Idaho Street. The project is estimated to be completed in mid-November.
Scott Schoenherr, a partner in Rafanelli & Nahas, said he hopes to have half of the building leased by the time construction finishes.
Boise’s urban renewal agency, the Capital City Development Corp., will build a 1-acre park from 11th to 12th streets on an existing parking lot facing Bannock Street.
Work on the park will begin in September. It will include an art installation by upstate New York artist Matthew Mazzotta: a 23-foot fake tree with pink leaves, surrounded by benches.
Schoenherr’s project is the only office building going up in downtown.
“I’m happy about that,” he said by phone.
The competition for tenants will increase among downtown office buildings as some employers decide to extend work-from-home policies and others delay planned office expansions.
Schoenherr said many of the people he thought would have signed leases by now are telling him, “I don’t know what our offices are going to look like in the future. Call me in six months and maybe I’ll know more.”
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Idaho Wheat Commission
In March, the Idaho Wheat Commission announced plans to raze its single-story headquarters at 821 W. State St. and build a new three-story one. The commission is also planning to build a parking garage with an automated car-stacking system.
The Wheat Commission estimates the building will cost $5.5 million. Part of that money would come from a Legislature-authorized bond, which the Wheat Commission, as a semi-state agency, would pay back from its own coffers.
Executive Director Casey Chumrau said she had hoped to seek approval for the bond sale from lawmakers during the 2020 legislative session, but permitting and planning delays — not related to COVID-19 — set the vote back to the 2021 session.
That approval, Chumrau said, will determine the timeline moving forward. The commission hopes to demolish the existing building in the first half of 2021.
Idaho Central Credit Union Towers
In May, the Meridian-based developer Ball Ventures Ahlquist announced plans for a 16-story, two-tower building at 200 N. 4th Street.
The project would include a mix of medical space, offices, a branch for the Idaho Central Credit Union, a 460-car parking garage, eight condos and 39 apartments.
The developer has brought its plans before the city’s planning staff. The Boise Planning and Zoning Commission is expected to hold a public hearing on the project this fall.
This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 4:00 AM.
