INSIDE: • Adding Amenities to Attract Offi Ce Tenants • Finding the Best Use for Downtown Boise’S Parking Lots
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VOLUME 5, NO. 1 IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW 2019 Property and Facilities Management INSIDE: • Adding amenities to attract offi ce tenants • Finding the best use for downtown Boise’s parking lots A QUARTERY SUPPLEMENT OF THE IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW Runs an architecture firm. Saves energy for the Employs 100 people. J.R. Simplot Company. Works in an open, Has 10,000 coworkers. collaborative office. Enjoys visiting production plants. Likes to save money. Likes to save money. Kent Hanway, Don Strickler, CSHQA Simplot No matter the business, we all want to save money. That’s one thing every business has in common, regardless of size. With Idaho Power’s Commercial and Industrial Energy Efficiency Program, you can get incentives now on upgrades that will save you even more in the future. You’ll also be supporting wise and efficient use of resources in the place we all call home. To see how easily you can save, visit our website. idahopower.com/business January 18, 2019 | www.idahobusinessreview.com| SQUARE FEET quarterly IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW publication | 3 IDAHO Editor’s note BUSINESS REVIEW By Kim Burgess Volume 5 No. 1 January 18, 2018 950 W. Bannock St., Suite 1100 #1136 I Boise, ID 83702 State to become the business editor at amenities and apartment projects by the daily newspaper in Santa Fe, New GROUP PUBLISHER Steve Sinovic, our new construction/ Lisa Blossman — 504-834-9292 Mexico. While we were sorry to lose real estate reporter. Steve covers the [email protected] Teya, it’s nice to see a hard-working growing trend of upgraded offi ces that PUBLISHER Cindy Suffa — 208-639-3517 journalist win a promotion and end up off er perks like game rooms, basketball [email protected] in a place that suits him to a T. courts and onsite service providers – EDITOR extras that can make an offi ce complex Kim Burgess — 208-639-3518 [email protected] In honor of Teya’s four years of stand out in a crowded market. He service to the IBR, I am printing his WEB EDITOR also looks at the rising demand for Liz Patterson Harbauer — 208-639-3510 fi nal magnum opus in full – a 4,000- [email protected] apartments to house the record number word epic about downtown parking WRITERS of newcomers moving to Idaho. Sharon Fisher — 208-639-3524 lots, which he scrupulously reported by sfi [email protected] 2018 was a big year for the Idaho riding around the city on a Green Bike Other topics include ADA sidewalk Steve Sinovic — 208-639-3530 and making hand-drawn maps. [email protected] Business Review, with plenty of changes regulations, disaster preparedness, in our coverage, products and staff MULTIMEDIA SALES EXECUTIVES Th e topic fortuitously fi ts perfectly in historic preservation and sustainability. Jeanette Trompczynski — 208-639-3526 makeup. [email protected] this edition of Square Feet on property Autumn Kersey — 208-639-3519 and facilities management. Enjoy! [email protected] One notable departure was IBR’s ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT/PUBLIC NOTICE/REPRINTS longtime construction/real estate In addition to the parking lot novella, Kim Burgess Laura Clements — 208-639-3528 [email protected] reporter, Teya Vitu, who left the Gem you will fi nd great articles on offi ce Idaho Business Review editor GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Heather Heater Stella Liang ADVERTISING [email protected] PUBLIC NOTICES [email protected] For TopList questions, email [email protected] To place orders, make changes to your account Surface parking lots are the recipe for downtown Boise’s future 4 and for other subscription inquiries: Phone: (877) 615-9536 Email: [email protected] Online: Go to www.idahobusinessreview.com and click ‘Amenities creep’ a closely watched offi ce market trend 9 “subscribe” to place an order or manage your account. Follow the subscribe instructions to place an order or in the “Manage Your Account” box, enter your username and password for immediate account access. Sidewalks can be path to nowhere for accessibility challenged 12 To register for online access and obtain a username and password: Go to www.idahobusinessreview.com and click “subscribe.” Follow the link at the top of the page under “Already a subscriber?” and follow the instructions to register. Please have your account number Preparation seen as key to crisis response 13 and the zip code on your account handy. For technical support: If you need help with our website our your login and password, please call (877) 615-9536 or email Mix of apartment projects on tap for the Treasure Valley 14 [email protected] To submit subscription or renewal payments: Phone: (877) 615-9536 Mail: Idaho Business Review, Subscription Services Opinion: Era-appropriate renovation key to preserving Boise’s mid-century homes 15 SDS-12-2632, P.O. Box 86, Minneapolis, MN 55486-2636 To order back issues: Selected issues are available. Call (877) 615-9536 or email Preservationists propose state tax credit to rehabilitate historic buildings 17 [email protected]. The IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW [ISSN 8750-4022] is a newspaper of general circulation published weekly. Subscription is $129 annually. (Includes Idaho sales tax for Idaho residents.) The IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW is an Idaho Corporation doing business at 950 W. Bannock Opinion: Sustainability benefi ts commercial real estate in Idaho 18 St., Suite 1100 #1136, Boise, ID 87302. Periodical postage paid at Boise, ID. Send address changes to IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW, P.O. Box 8866, Boise, ID 83707. Entire contents copyrighted 2019 by IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW. All rights reserved. Material published in the IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW may not be republished, resold, recorded or used in any manner, in whole or in part, without the publisher’s express written consent. Reprints available at [email protected]. ON THE COVER: Downtown Boise’s City Center Plaza is home to Clearwater Analytics, which has Opinions expressed by the columnists are not necessarily the some of the best office amenities in the city. Photo by Pete Grady. opinions or the policy of the IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW. The IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW is an affi liate of BridgeTower Media. How Can We Serve You in 2019? Do Your Need A Commercial or Residential Real Estate Equity Loan... And The Bank Can't Help? Do You Need A REALTOR Who Can Help You Earn The Maximum Sales Price For Your Idaho Commercial or Residential Property? Are You Looking To Earn 7%+ Returns (Avg. Historical Returns) On Real Estate Secured Loan Investment Opportunities? Whatever Your Real Estate Financial Need... Let Hopkins Financial Services, Inc. Be Of Service To You! Since 1983, Over A Half Billion Funded! Call 208-HOP-KINS Today! Visit: www.HopkinsFinancial.com. NMLS# 2631 / RE-LIC# CO12414 4 | SQUARE FEET quarterly IDAHO BUSINESS REVIEW publication | January 18, 2019 | www.idahobusinessreview.com Idaho Power is surrounded by surface parking lots. Photo by Teya Vitu. Surface parking lots are the recipe BY TEYA VITU for downtown Boise’s future Special to the IBR Downtown Boise is one big surface parking lot. A map of surface parking lots shows downtown awash in car- bedecked asphalt and dirt. If you mass all the surface parking lots together, it would equal 28 city blocks – the equivalent of the entire heart of downtown: 5th to 12th streets and Main to State streets. The surface parking lots add up to 84.4 acres within the more or less 1867 township boundaries of Boise, what is considered today’s downtown: Fort to Myrtle streets and Broadway/Avenue B to 16th street, according to calculations by Carl Miller, principal planner at Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho (COMPASS), the region’s metropolitan planning agency. That exceeds the 73 acres of Boise Towne Square, Boise Towne Plaza and their parking lots, all operated by General Growth Properties. The one major exception is the 10-block Central District urban renewal zone that the Capital City Development Corp., the city’s redevelopment agency, has built up for the last 30 years with signature projects. One thing is certain, a vast number of those surface lots will evaporate in the coming years and decades. Even Jeff Wolfe, overseer of the most surface parking lots in downtown Boise, recognizes the eventual demise of surface parking lots. “They are going away,” said Wolfe, president of The Car Park, downtown’s largest surface and garage parking operator. “In most cases in a downtown urban core, surface parking is not the highest and best use. Surface parking is an interim use in most cases.” The question is what will the future downtown Boise look like? Would Mayor Moses Alexander 100 years ago ever have imagined today’s downtown Boise? The first 12-story building didn’t even Surface parking lots cover 84.4 acres of downtown Boise. Image courtesy of Community Planning Association of arrive until 1930 with the Boise Hotel – today’s Hoff Building at Southwest Idaho. Eighth and Bannock streets. The Idaho Business Review posed this theme to a number of structures that even historians won’t defend. And, in this age of 1980s and 1990s eventually resulted in the Boise Centre, Grove downtown adherents: what could, should, needs to be done with disposable architecture, anything built today or in the past 50 Hotel, CenturyLink Arena, Wells Fargo building and Clearwater all these surface parking lots and what should not be done? years could be wiped clean in the next 20 to 30 years. building. Three of the four downtown Boise hotels opened in the past The responses were as widespread as the respondents The entire downtown Boise footprint could be rethought in the two years were erected on parking lots and so was the Hampton themselves. next 50 to 100 years.