Want to live by the Boise River near downtown? It would replace free Greenbelt parking
A chunk of land along Parkcenter Boulevard that once hosted the Idaho Shakespeare Festival could become the site of 125 riverside apartments near downtown and Boise State University.
The new apartment building at 444 W. Parkcenter Blvd. would be next to the Parkcenter bridge to the west, the Greenbelt and Boise River to the north, and an office building to the east.
Preliminary plans for the building include five stories, a parking garage, a pool, bicycle parking and a storefront on the 3 acres. The land is zoned for L-OD, which stands for limited office in a design review overlay district. Residential uses are allowed in office zones.
The site is a half-mile east of the Albertsons on Broadway Avenue and a third of a mile west of the Albertsons corporate headquarters on Parkcenter.
The site hosted the Shakespeare Festival from 1984 to 1997. It’s about six miles northeast of where the festival is now located off East Warm Springs Avenue.
The site is just across Parkcenter from a site where another 125-unit apartment building is already under construction at the corner of West Beacon Street. Both buildings are close to Boise State University, though the building under construction isn’t exclusively for student housing.
Pivot North Architecture’s Chad Gierhart is listed as the latest proposal’s applicant on a pre-application conference summary document. No one was identified in the document other than Gierhart, and he said ownership declined to comment.
The property is owned by Boise-based Bam Inc., according to Ada County records. Bam’s registered agent is Peter McDonald. The land was owned by ABC West LLC until last year. ABC West uses a Hailey mailing address but an Eagle principal address.
City officials attended the pre-application meeting. They discussed neighborhood meeting and design review requirements, safety improvements like additional streetlights and a tree mitigation plan.
The property now often has parked cars, as the empty spot provides quick access to the Greenbelt. The parks department requested the applicant “help educate the public” that existing parking on private property would no longer be available.
Floor plans of the potential building show a 70-foot setback from the Boise River.
There’s yet to be a formal application for the new building.
This story was originally published April 25, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
