Idaho Business Review

More than two dozen new condos are slated for construction in downtown Boise with the potential for more in an adjacent office building. 

The new housing units are planned for an 11,500-square-foot parking lot at 119 10th St. The six-story building will hold two and three- bedroom units. The building will also include two floors of private parking, said Bryant Forrester, president of the Urban Concepts Division of Homeland Realty. Bryant is marketing the development. CSHQA is designing the project. CSDI is the general contractor.

Forrester said the building will fill two pressing needs downtown: housing and parking to go with it. 

“Parking is a huge amenity for downtown housing, and right now, there is a glaring shortage of any residential properties available in the downtown core,” Forrester said.

Meanwhile, Sawtooth Development Group is also planning the redevelopment of the adjacent John Alden building at 10th and Main Street. Vacant for five years, the 43,000-square-foot office building and a basement with another 11,000 square feet once were home to a bank, the Boise Cascade company, and an insurance firm. The brick structure will contain street level retail and restaurant space. The top three floors will be converted into condos, said Colliers International Investment Broker Clay Anderson, who sold the property.

“No one really took a serious look at a building with a housing component until now,” Anderson said. 

Greater access to construction loans and overall confidence in the building market have contributed to a renewed interest in downtown housing, Anderson said. 

“Construction was put on pause in Boise and other cities for so long, and now the energy is there, especially in downtown,” he said. 

Shane Felker and his business partner Clay Sammis of Sawtooth hope to break ground “as fast as possible” pending approval from Boise’s Design Review committee. The two have completed several other projects including student housing, single-family, and industrial condos in San Diego and Denver and Austin, and medical offices and other university projects, Felker said. Development costs for the Boise project are still being determined.

Development at 10th and Main and at 119 10th Street, specifically the housing component, might not have been feasible three years ago, Felker said. But with the economic turnaround and low downtown residential vacancy, now seemed the right time to consider building. While some apartments are available for rent in downtown, there is a limited number of condos for sale, which is why the group opted to sell the units rather than rent them. Their selling price hasn’t been set, but Felker said they would be affordable to “downtown office workers’ or people wanting a second home in downtown.

“With City Center Plaza and the workforce that will be here, workforce housing will be in more demand,” Felker said, referring to a large downtown development announced last month by the Gardner Company. 

The Capital City Development Corporation also announced in early February that six projects, five of them housing, were submitted for development consideration at the corner at 620 S. Ninth Street. CCDC hasn’t yet identified a developer for that project. 

“I think downtown vibrancy is a catalyst in itself, and we’re seeing it with all of the new commercial development in the downtown core,” Forrester said.