Pioneer Crossing will reinvent a dirt lot between Front and Myrtle

Pioneer Crossing will stretch the downtown core two blocks to the south and west with a planned hotel, restaurant,  five-story office building and possible relocation of the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce

The chamber could move into office space at the Pioneer Crossing parking garage that will be built at 11^th and Front streets.

Gardner Company, the Pioneer Crossing developer, has used the Boise chamber name in its artistic renditions for the 644-space garage since earlier in summer, but Chamber CEO Bill Connors said no commitment has been made. He said he expects to know by the time his board meets the second week of September.

The chamber’s lease at C.W. Moore Plaza expires at the end of 2017.

“We’re very interested,” Connors said about the garage office. “Now that we have the Convention & Visitors Bureau with us, we need a concept of a streetfront and storefront location.”

The move could lead to a full-fledged visitor center, which Boise has not had since the Greater Boise Auditorium District cut funding by $1.3 million to the Boise Convention & Visitors Bureau in 2010 that ultimately resulted in a staff cut from 15 to three. Boise now relies on the small Concierge Corner & Visitor Services offered by the Boise Centre at the base of the City Centre Garage at Ninth and Front streets and various hotel brochure racks.

The BCVB does have brochure stands at its third floor office at C.W. Moore Plaza, but  BCVB Executive Director Carrie Westergard said the area needs more. She said the chamber is considering 13,000 square feet for the visitor center.

“I think it will be easier for visitors to find us on the ground level,” Westergard said.

A hotel returns to the Pioneer Crossing plans

Gardner Company bought the 5.02-acre Pioneer Crossing property – long regarded as Parcel B – from the Greater Boise Auditorium District in February.  Parcel B is bounded by Myrtle, Front, 11^th and 13^th streets.

GBAD wanted a convention hotel for the property as a condition for the sale. For months, Gardner offered two hotels with a combined 300 rooms but pulled the hotels off the table in January.

The GBAD board of directors in February debated whether to cancel the sale but ultimately agreed to Gardner’s $7.925 million offer even with no hotels in play.

GBAD/Boise Centre Executive Director Pat Rice greeted the return of a 150-room Hilton Garden Inn with lukewarm enthusiasm.

“The hotel would be a 500-room branded property,” Rice said. “The fact that another hotel is being built, that is fine. It can’t hurt anything. What we would really like is something significant to drive weekend demand.”

Downtown hotels are business-oriented,  with heavier traffic Monday to Thursday.

Rice did say Gardner’s proposed Hilton Garden Inn is close to Boise Centre and could be appealing for larger groups willing to house meeting attendees in several hotels.

Pioneer Crossing will swallow up cheap parking

Pioneer Crossing will displace The Car Park’s 200-plus space convention dirt parking lot, which has the second lowest monthly parking rates among The Car Park’s 19 downtown Boise lots. The Car Park sent a notice Aug. 18 to permit holders saying permit parking would not be available beyond Sept. 30.

“We will put daily parking on there as long as we can,” The Car Park owner Jeff Wolfe said.

Wolfe is looking to place all the Convention lot permit holders at other The Car Park lots, and he’s trying to create new parking lots.

“The city has eased the standards on temporary parking lots,” Wolfe said. “We are working with a couple land owners to convert vacant lots.”

Office sector will boom at The Connector

Gardner Company proposes a five-story, 125,000-square-foot office building for Myrtle and 13^th street. Across Myrtle on the same block, two buildings of Capitol Gateway Plaza (originally Pioneer Plaza) and the 11^th & Myrtle medical office have been in place since 1993, 1999 and 2005, respectively, with a combined 87,611 square feet. The major tenants are New York Life and Regence.

“They did go out there before others but our downtown is growing,” said Peter Oliver, an owner at Thornton Oliver Keller Commercial Real Estate. “Downtown really will encompass everything from Broadway to College of Western Idaho’s new campus to the river.”

Pioneer Crossing will also be across 11^th Street from JUMP and the new J.R. Simplot Co. world headquarters.

Oliver and Mike Greene, another TOK owner, are the leasing agents for Gardner’s Pioneer Crossing office building.

“Pioneer Crossing will be attractive because Gardner always does a terrific job with design and giving tenants what they want,” Greene said.

Instant access to and from The Connector, a 644-space garage and the Hilton Garden Inn on the same property are strong selling points for Pioneer Crossing, they said.

“The biggest trend we are seeing is an influx of technology companies into downtown,” Oliver said. “As we develop a base of those companies (like Clearwater Analytics), other companies will follow.”

Oliver and Greene have no estimate how long it will take to fill the Pioneer Crossing office building or reach the 50- to 60-percent occupancy Gardner Chief Operating Officer Tommy Ahlquist seeks before construction starts.

“Deals take a long time,” Oliver said. “Lightning can strike. Somebody comes in and says ‘I want two or three floors.”

Ahlquist said two of the five floors are in negotiations now.

The commercial real estate market is now more than two years out from the opening of Eighth and Main with its addition of 250,000 square feet of office. Greene anticipates a roughly 9 percent downtown Boise office vacancy rate once “the Simplot and Eighth and Main dust settles,” a rate he considers healthy.

“I think what people are faced with now are Clearwater and Simplot vacancies,” Greene said.

Simplot and Clearwater are vacating more than 150,000 square feet of downtown Boise office space with their respective moves this year.