Idaho Falls seeks proposals to redevelop Bonneville Hotel

The Idaho Falls Redevelopment Agency is seeking proposals to redevelop the historic Bonneville Hotel and a vacant downtown lot that was once the site of the Savings Center.

The ambition is to find proposals to convert both properties into downtown housing as Idaho Falls seeks to increase the number of people living downtown, IFRdA officials said.

Neither IFRdA nor the city of Idaho Falls own either property, but the agency has had an option since Oct. 1 to purchase the Bonneville Hotel and has agreed to purchase the Savings Center property.  Both sales are contingent on successful proposals and both would be for $1.5 million, said Lee Radford, chairman of the IFRdA board.

The request for proposals was issued Feb. 7 and proposals are due May 2. No proposals had been submitted as of Feb. 29, said Brad Cramer, the city’s community development services director and executive director of the IFRdA.

“After the RFP came out, I had a lot of hits, a lot from locals, some from Boise and out of state,” Cramer said.

The five-story Bonneville Hotel was built in 1927 in the style of the Italian Renaissance. The building now has 63 residential apartments with some short-term tenants as well as a vacant ground floor restaurant space.

The Savings Center property, also known as the Kelsch property, is a .95-acre empty lot at the entrance to downtown at Broadway and memorial Drive.

“It’s probably the prime property in downtown right now. It’s right on Broadway,” said Idaho Falls City Councilmember Tom Hally, who also serves on the IFRdA board.

IFRdA official are targeting a mix of affordable and market-rate housing for the Bonneville hotel with market-rate units on the upper floors and affordable units on the lower floors, said Renee Magee, the agency’s former executive director.

Radford said market-rate housing will be the likely tenant on the Savings Center lot.

A downtown housing study commissioned by Idaho Falls determined 231 people live downtown and there is a demand for between 450 and 500 more downtown housing units, Cramer said.

Part of the push for downtown housing is the millennial generation that Idaho National Laboratory and other local high-tech companies are recruiting.

“To keep downtown progressing into the future, you need to have people living downtown to have a vibrant community,” Radford said.