Inn at 500 Capitol will be the second downtown Boise hotel out of the gate

The second downtown Boise hotel groundbreaking in as many months is set for Oct. 13 as work starts on the Inn at 500 Capitol, a boutique hotel at the southeast corner of Capitol Boulevard and Myrtle Street.

Across the street, at the northeast corner, demolition work started Sept. 2 on the Dunkley Music building to make way for a 10-story, 186-room Residence Inn by Marriott.

These two hotels are the first of six projected downtown Boise hotels that could all be breaking ground as fall and winter set in.

The Residence Inn project is at excavation and backfill stage and it will take about three or four weeks to put the proper soils in place. Footings and foundations work should begin the last week of October or early November, said Jared S. Smith, principal at Eagle-based Pennbridge Lodging, the project’s developer.

In the past month, Smith’s crew removed the buildings, extracted an underground oil tank and remediated the site. Utility lines were relocated from the alley that ran alongside Dunkley, Smith said.

He expects construction to take 18 months with completion set for spring 2017.

The 112-room Inn at 500 Capitol will put up a fence around property Oct. 14 and start removing the paved parking lot and relocating

elevated power lines underground the week of Oct. 19, said Casey Barrett, co-manager at Obie Development Partners, based in Eugene, Ore.

Barrett expects to start footings and foundations in mid-November and begin building the six-story boutique hotel’s shell near the beginning of the year. The hotel will welcome guests in December 2016.

Provo, Utah-based PEG Development expects to apply for a building permit in November for a five-story, 150-room Hyatt Place on a Boise Plaza parking lot at 10^th and Bannock streets, company Vice President Robert Schmidt said.

“We anticipate breaking ground before the end of the year,” Schmidt said.

He said Hyatt Place will have its niche among all the new hotel construction that includes boutique and extended stay when it’s scheduled to open in spring 2017.

“Hyatt Place is geared to business travelers at a price point that is typically less than Residence Inn or Embassy Suites,” Schmidt said. “We’ll be about even with a Hilton Garden Inn.”

Gardner Company entered into a purchase agreement Oct. 8 with the Greater Boise Auditorium District, which owns the so-called Parcel B, where Gardner proposes to build two hotels with 174 and 129 rooms. The appraised price for the 5.02-acre two-city-block property bounded by Myrtle, Front, 11^th and 13^th streets is $7.95 million.

Gardner is nearing the end of its six-month due diligence period, where the company has had exclusive rights to consider purchasing and developing Parcel B.

Gardner has not revealed which hotel brands it is negotiating with, but GBAD officials have said the larger hotel will be an Embassy Suites, a Hilton brand, and Gardner officials indicated both hotels will be with the same parent brand.

Gardner is expected to appear before the Boise Planning and Zoning Commission Oct. 21 for a conditions of approval hearing. If that is

successful, Gardner may apply for a building permit, said Sarah Schafer, the city’s design review and historic preservation manager.

Gardner Executive Vice President David Wali has said in earlier interviews that the company wants to start construction as soon as possible. Gardner is the same company that built the Eighth and Main tower and is currently building City Center Plaza. Construction on the hotel is expected to take 18 months.

A sixth hotel, at downtown Boise’s eastern edge between Whole Foods and Myrtle Street, is scheduled for a conditional use permit hearing Nov. 2 at the Boise Planning and Zoning Commission. Ram Development Partners of Charlotte, N.C., proposes a five-story, 106-room hotel on the 1.7-acre lot now used for surplus parking at Whole Foods.

Each project has been actively engaged with Boise Planning and Development Services, which conducts zoning, design reviews and issues building permits.

“I’m not seeing anyone drop out,” Schafer said.