A downtown hotel is slated for Nampa

Nampa intends to swap land with a private company to enable construction of a hotel on the surface parking lot at the Nampa Civic Center.

The 81-room Best Western Plus would be the only hotel within easy walking distance of the city’s convention center.

The City Council on Sept. 21 unanimously declared its intent to enter into a land swap agreement with Peppertree Hospitality of Spokane, pending an Oct. 19 public hearing and determination if the land swap is equal.

Peppertree is purchasing a roughly 4,000-square-foot former Spanish church building at 11 13th Avenue South to exchange for 38,905 square feet of convention center parking lot at the corner of Second Avenue South and Third Street South.

Part of the discussion leading up to the swap concerned the surface parking. Many planners nationwide say that surface parking isn’t the best use for prime real estate.

“It was definitely a heavy discussion,” said Beth Ineck, Nampa’s economic development director. “We asked ‘are we overparked’? We just built a huge parking structure at Nampa Library Square.”

Nampa Mayor Bob Henry said the city has long tried to attract a hotel developer to build near the 25-year-old Civic Center. Eight of the city’s nine hotels and motels are near the freeway. The only downtown property, the Downtown Inn, is seven blocks from the Civic Center and has only 30 rooms.

“It’s great to see new buildings in Downtown Nampa that aren’t city-owned,” Henry said in a release. “This new $5 million hotel will be on the tax rolls, and it will be beneficial for the Civic Center.”

Construction could start in early 2016 with completion of the four-story structure possibly before the end of the year, Ineck said.

Peppertree Hospitality owners John and Rita Santillanes are based in Spokane and own four Peppermill Inn hotels under the Best Western Plus brand in the Washington communities of Spokane, Liberty Lake, Omak and Auburn.

Rita Santillanes lived in southern Idaho 30 years ago.

The Santillanas got hooked up with Nampa via a trip Ineck took to Las Vegas in May 2014 to attend the International Council of Shopping Centers conference.

“I went to pitch a hotel,” said Ineck, who talked with all the major hotel brands. “I was pitching 60 to 80 rooms. We just wanted to find a partner willing to be in the vicinity of the civic center. We didn’t know it would be on the city site.”

Later on, Best Western’s regional director of membership development took interest in Nampa and matched Ineck up with the Santillanas in Spokane. The parking lot was a fit because it didn’t often fill up, and the parties chose a 245-by-145-foot portion farthest away from the building.

The city did a parking swap of its own. It demolished a gym it had used for document storage south of City Hall and converted it into a parking lot, with Peppertree paying the $130,000 cost. The storage will be moved to the Spanish church building that the city will get from Peppertree, Ineck said.