Want a new apartment with ‘energy’ in downtown Meridian? These are going up now
Meridian’s Old Town will be home to 103 new tenants next spring.
Two four-story apartment buildings are going up in downtown Meridian, and the developer hopes to have tenants moved in by April 2022.
The development will have 103 residential apartments — a mix of studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. The buildings also include 17,000 square feet of commercial space.
The rent for the Old Town Lofts will be “market rate-like,” said Josh Evarts, the lofts’ developer. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Meridian is $1,422, according to RentCafe.
Evarts told the Meridian City Council on Tuesday that he hoped the apartments would be affordable to the bartenders and food-service workers employed downtown.
The cost of construction will play a role in what the rents will be, Evarts said. He said the COVID-19 pandemic made labor difficult to find. With the population of the Boise-area growing, more competition for materials and labor in the valley also played a role, he said.
The Old Town Loft buildings are a few blocks away from each other, both in the heart of downtown Meridian, known as Old Town. One building is located on the corner of North Main and East Broadway, across from city hall. The second is located at Idaho Ave. and Meridian Road.
The council approved an amendment to the Old Town Lofts development agreement to allow the developers to convert the apartments to condominiums. Evarts told the council that he did not plan to sell the apartments as condos, but wanted the option in case markets changed.
If converted, the Old Town Lofts would be known as the Creamery Condominiums, following the new development agreement.
Evarts said he is committed to “making the units as affordable as possible.” He told the council that if he was to sell the units as condos, he thinks they would sell at prices beyond what the average resident could afford.
The apartment buildings have been in the works since 2015, when Meridian’s urban renewal agency, the Meridian Development Corp. asked for proposals to develop the two downtown sites. Evart submitted the only proposal the Idaho Statesman previously reported.
“I have a continued appreciation for the city and its partnership with the project,” Evarts said. “When we started, we wanted to infuse some energy into downtown Meridian.”
