A powerful legislator has sought I-84 exit for years. He may get Amazon to build it
The state could get Amazon to front the costs for a new interchange at Idaho 16 and Interstate 84 if a bill proposed by House Majority Leader Mike Moyle passes.
The bill, H.B. 540, doesn’t mention Amazon by name, but it’s clear for whom the bill is intended. The bill would allow any developer of a fulfillment center, such as Amazon’s massive one going up north of Interstate 84 at Star Road, to build up to $35 million in transportation infrastructure, which the state would later reimburse by tapping a portion of the sales tax revenue the center brings in.
The bill would also allow for existing retailers near the fulfillment center to chip in for the road improvements. They, too, would be eligible for sales tax reimbursements.
Some of the money the businesses front could be used to pay for road improvements that Nampa had previously discussed with Amazon, such as improvements to the I-84 Garrity Road Interchange, or an entirely new interchange at a future southward extension of Idaho 16. The extension mostly would follow the alignment of McDermott Road, though it would shift west before it reaches I-84.
Idaho 16 now extends from Emmett south to U.S. 20-26. Proposed nearly a decade ago, the Idaho 16 project would make it an expressway from Emmett to I-84, creating a major north-south route. A 2-mile segment over the Boise River, connecting State Street to Chinden Boulevard (U.S. 20-26), opened six years ago, but the rest of the $450 million project has yet to be funded by the state.
Even if the bill passes, Nampa’s economic development director, Beth Ineck, says it’s unlikely Amazon will commit more money than it already has.
“It’s not realistic,” she said in a phone interview. “There’s nothing here that would require them to make these improvements.”
Getting traffic off Garrity
Fronting the cost of an Idaho 16 interchange could be an attractive proposition for the car dealerships off the Garrity Road interchange, near the fulfillment center, and for the Walmart off Idaho Center Boulevard, which might prefer to keep Garrity clear from Amazon traffic so their customers don’t get backed up.
“You’re going to have Amazon dumping 7,000 cars on Garrity, and those existing businesses are screwed,” Moyle told the Idaho Statesman by phone.
A traffic impact study Amazon submitted to the city projected the fulfillment center would generate 7,000 trips per day during the peak delivery season, including 358 truck trips. The center is expected to start by employing 1,000 people, and could employ as many as 3,000 people during peak seasons.
Nampa has spent the last year trying to anticipate Amazon’s effects on its roads. In February 2019, Amazon entered into a deal with the city to pay for about $9.5 million in roadway improvements to mitigate the fulfillment center’s impact on the area.
“Nampa required the most extensive traffic impact analysis ever completed in the city for a development project,” Ineck said in a statement. “The process was a very fair and collaborative effort.”
That will include $3.8 million in upgrades to the Franklin and Robinson road frontages and $2.7 million to replace a roundabout at the intersection of Franklin and Star with a traffic signal. It will also include funds for other intersections along Franklin and Idaho Center Boulevard.
Amazon will also pay $5 million to the Idaho Transportation Department to be used on future road improvements in the area, though ITD still hasn’t decided where that money will go.
The Ada County Highway District, meanwhile, will see impacts on its roads from the distribution center, but cannot charge impact fees or require Amazon to make road improvements around its site, district spokeswoman Natalie Shaver said.
Moyle, an 11-term Republican from Star, says Amazon’s improvements to the local roads won’t be enough.
“I was appalled that before Nampa approved Amazon, they didn’t get them to do something with Highway 16,” he said. “With 7,000 cars, you’re not going to get them on Garrity.”
Ineck doesn’t think it’s fair to ask any more of Amazon.
“Highway 16 is a project far beyond the responsibility of Amazon to complete,” she wrote. “Highway 16 is a project that has been contemplated by the state for many years and has been needed long before Amazon located in Nampa to provide better north-south transportation corridors to service the entire Boise Valley.”
Nampa’s negotiations with Amazon
Nampa had talked with Amazon about using the state’s sales tax reimbursement program — referred to as STAR — to pay for additional improvements to the road. The program has been used in Meridian, for example, to pay Costco for widening 3 miles of Chinden Boulevard and to pay The Village at Meridian for making improvements along Eagle Road.
But the STAR program was made for retailers, and Amazon wasn’t sure it would qualify, Ineck said.
“Timing was really important to the project,” Ineck said by phone. “Working through the state system to get STAR together — it became too cumbersome to pursue.”
H.B. 540 would make Amazon eligible now. Amazon would register its Nampa distribution center with the state, so that it could track the Idaho sales taxes applicable to items routed through there, and divert those revenues toward roadway projects.
Moyle pushes bill to fund improvements
If Moyle’s bill passes, any road projects Amazon offers to build would likely happen after construction of the fulfillment center is finished, which is expected this fall.
That concerns Moyle, but he said he’d rather see the improvements made later than never.
Nampa has not been working alongside Moyle and Amazon on the proposal. No one has, really — it’s a bill Moyle has taken on himself. Even his two cosponsors of the bill, Sen. Jim Rice of Caldwell and Rep. Robert Anderst of Nampa, deferred questions on the bill’s details to Moyle. In a phone interview, Anderst said he hadn’t known his name was even on the bill until a Statesman reporter pointed it out.
Getting Amazon and its neighbors to pay for part of Idaho 16 would be a win for Moyle, who has long voiced support for funding the road project, which would provide faster access to his district in Star.
“It will promote a lot of growth,” Moyle said.
Sales tax revenue diverted to transportation
Not all legislators agree with Moyle’s proposal.
“That’s a lot of sales tax revenue lost,” Rep. John Gannon, a Boise Democrat, said by phone. That’s money that should be going toward schools’ maintenance and operation budgets, he argues.
Gannon is referring to a tax shift the Legislature passed in 2006 with the backing of then-Gov. Jim Risch. That law proposed property tax relief to Idahoans by eliminating Idaho’s maintenance and operations property tax levy for schools, which amounted to about $300 of every $100,000 of property.
Lawmakers replaced that property tax revenue by raising Idaho’s sales tax a penny, to 6%. But in the 14 years since, school districts have resorted more and more to supplemental levies to meet their budgets, which further increase property taxes.
“Maintenance and operation budgets have been chipped away at with these kinds of bills,” Gannon said.
Transportation, though, is a huge priority for the state, Anderst said.
“Everybody relies on it to work efficiently,” he said. “If that means some general fund dollars should be used for transportation, I’m OK with that.”
This story was revised March 10 to include comments from Nampa’s economic development director and clarify the fulfillment center’s expected employment.
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 4:00 AM.
