New craft breweries are one sign of renewal in downtown Twin Falls

Storefronts on Main Avenue in downtown Twin Falls are filled with businesses door-to-door-to-door, with several new arrivals just in the past few months.

It is no accident that entrepreneurs, shoppers and diners are increasingly gravitating toward Main

Avenue, the southern Idaho city’s principal downtown commerce street.

Twin Falls’ showcase downtown street has had a rebirth in the past few months with completion of a $6.2 million revamp that reimagined the historic street. The street once featured buckling sidewalks and worn pavement, and was clogged with 1970s-era trees, creating a landscape ill-suited for an urban setting.

Now, “it is a poster child of what urban renewal agencies are supposed to do,” Twin Falls Mayor Shawn Barigar said. “They spark private investment. This project has exceeded my wildest expectations for what I thought it would do.”

Barigar figured the Main Avenue project, which has been underway over the past year or so, would replace the damaged sidewalks and move the street into compliance with Americans with Disability Act requirements.

Instead, Shane Cook, owner of the popular Twin Falls Sandwich Company on Main Avenue, now has a construction zone five doors down that will become the Koto Brewing Company. It will be the second downtown craft brewery opening in the coming months. The first is the yet-to-be named establishment in the former Elks Lodge building, which was created by the team of Elevation 486 restaurant owner Tom Nickel and Summit Creek Capital managing director Tyler Davis-Jeffers.

These will be the first two craft breweries in downtown Twin Falls.

Cook has watched downtown evolve since he opened Twin Falls Sandwich Company in 2012.

Davis-Jeffers has an ambitious $6 million project in mind for the former Idaho Youth Ranch/ Idaho Department Store property across Main Avenue from the new City Hall and Downtown Commons plaza. He plans to build a four-story retail/office/residential structure there.

On a smaller scale, Nate Rioux and Chris Cawthra in March opened Bull Moose Bicycles, a bicycle repair shop with a century-old aura within that fits with the 1920s/1930s architecture on Main.

“Chris and I wanted to be a part of downtown,” said Rioux, who was a social worker before he started Bull Moose, while Cawthra managed a bike shop. “It’s being part of something when you’re downtown. It’s a community. You’re looking out for each other.”

At the opposite end of the longevity spectrum, the Ashenbrener family has been at the same Main Avenue location since 1946, first with Rudy’s Hardware and, since 2002, Rudy’s A Cook’s Paradise, a destination kitchen shop with shoppers traveling from neighboring states.

Rudy’s owner Tom Ashenbrener credited the Main Avenue upgrades, which include new benches, and historic light poles, with increasing shopper traffic.

“The whole valley was hungry for a sense of place,” Ashenbrener said.

Wider sidewalks have noticeably increased sidewalk dining, Ashenbrener noted.

“You can’t overstate how important that is,” he said.

Tony Prater has owned Jensen Jewelers on Main Avenue for 15 years and has worked there for 40 years. He and his wife, Robin Dober, for 19 years have been the directors of Twin Falls Tonight, the summer concert series staged on downtown streets or parking lots.

“It’s become a more youthful clientele,” Prater said about store business following the Main Avenue improvements. “A lot of new people are finding us.”

Overnight success took years

Downtown revitalizations have descended upon American cities, one by one, for the past two or three decades – often after a decade or two of hemming and hawing. The new Main Avenue in downtown Twin Falls did not come about overnight either.

The city demolished and rebuilt the street and its sidewalks between February and July 2017. But city officials had been talking for years about doing more. Key modern pioneers unwittingly set the ball in motion. Twin Falls City Manager Travis Rothweiler credits St. Luke’s Health System moving its Magic Valley billing office downtown in 2010 and Glanbia Foods moving its corporate office downtown in 2012 as the tipping point from talk to action.

“All of that gave the redevelopment agency the courage to do it,” Rothweiler said. “It was us realizing we could do this project once and for all.”

City cash reserves paid for the new $5.8 million city hall, which was fashioned out of the former Banner Furniture building, as well as a $4 million remodel of the police station and its expansion into the former city hall.  Twin Falls Urban Renewal Agency funded the $6.2 million five-block Main Avenue reconstruction and the soon-to-be-completed $2.3 million Downtown Commons plaza and public event space in front of city hall.

“It’s a sense of what’s possible,” Rothweiler said. “You’ve seen a lot of folks saying ‘What can I do to be a part of this?’”

Mayor Shawn Barigar is a professional cheerleader at his other job as CEO of the Twin Falls Chamber of Commerce, but he’s still caught off-guard about the success of the new Main Avenue.

“It’s no longer necessary to be a pioneer downtown,” Barigar said.