CWI agrees to buy Boise property for a second campus

The College of Western Idaho on Dec. 7 committed to buying a 10.33-acre former car dealership property on Boise’s west end for $8.737 million.

The sale of the property at Main Street and Whitewater Park Boulevard is expected to close in about 60 days.

At that time, CWI trustees and staff will start programming just what role the Boise campus will play when the anticipated opening arrives in 2019.

CWI, which opened in 2009, is considered the fastest-growing community college in the nation with about 18,500 students this semester. The Boise campus is expected to more than double CWI enrollment, Board Vice Chair Guy Hurlbutt said.

“From the beginning, the concept has always been a two-county campus,” said Hurlbutt, a founding trustee. “What we will have now is a pretty even distribution of students on two campuses.”

Trustee Stanley Bastian added: “Studies have indicated throughout the nation, if you have a campus near the population center, you can substantially increase the number of students that will attend.”

CWI specifically wants to open in Boise in 2019 because that is the year that the college’s more than $2 million in annual leases expires for its current Boise presence, largely at Black Eagle campus on Overland Road. It chose a large empty riverfront site at the west end of Boise’s downtown in an area with both empty lots and new buildings.

The trustees voted 4-1 to proceed with the land purchase, though Board Chair Mary Niland voted against the purchase.

The board in October extended the due-diligence period just before the six-month period expired Oct. 22. Right after CWI on April 22 initially agreed to buy the land from the Rice Family Trust for $8.88 million, questions arose because the Ada County Assessor had assessed the acreage for $3.6 million. A subsequent appraisal by the Boise office of New York-based Integra Realty Resources valued the land at $8.975 million, which the trustees whittled down by $238,000.

“I wasn’t totally sure the price was the right price,” Niland said. “There’s transportation issues there.”

Main Street is one-way westbound at the south edge of the future campus.

Overall, though, the trustees were satisfied with the property and its location near downtown Boise.

“The property is located centrally in Ada County,” Bastian said as he made the motion to purchase. “The citizens from Ada County from the west, south, north and east can transport easily to that location. It will be an easy commute for the people from Canyon County.”

No price tag has been contemplated for building a Boise campus. The Boise office of CTA Architects offered three conceptual designs for the campus, each ultimately offering about 600,000 square feet of spaces, built out in three phases.

Boise will not supersede Nampa, Trustee Mark Dunham said.

“As we purchase this property, we are still committed to the Nampa campus,” Dunham said.

CWI has more than 100 acres of land in Canyon County, CWI spokeswoman Jennifer Couch said.

CTA Architects spent the summer drawing up designs that play off the site’s proximity to downtown and the adjacent Boise River Greenbelt. The ultimate concepts also reflect input from more than 100 people who took part in community sessions at Whittier Elementary School and CWI’s Nampa and existing Boise campus.

The four trustees who voted to purchase the property were satisfied with the price and with the results of soil studies and environmental studies, and felt confident the property had been cleared of any hazardous materials. Vehicle and utility accessibility convinced them the property could be developed as a college campus, Bastian said.

There is no timeline for construction to start.