fbpx

Tag: Commercial Construction

D&B Supply commits to Kuna

D&B Supply will build a store at Kuna’s most prominent commercial intersection. Image courtesy of Larson Architects.

Farmers and gardeners in Kuna will no longer have to commute to Nampa or Caldwell for their D&B Supply needs.

D&B Supply plans to build its first Kuna store at Meridian and Deer Flat roads, the city’s most prominent retail hub. The 40,000-square-foot D&B will be across Meridian Road from Ridley’s Family Market, Ace Hardware, Idaho Central Credit Union, Bi-Mart, Tractor Supply, Dollar Tree, Taco Bell, O’Reilly Auto Parts and Smoky Mountain Pizzeria Grill.

Construction is scheduled to start around the beginning of November with an opening expected in August or September 2019, D&B Supply President and CEO Mark Schmitt said.

Kuna will be only the third of 15 D&B Supply stores built from the ground up since the company was founded in Caldwell in 1959. D&B has otherwise expanded into existing space. It will be among the three largest stores, along with Nampa and Meridian.

“The Boise-Meridian (metropolitan) area is one of the fastest growing in the country,” Schmitt said. “A big part of that is what’s happening in Kuna.”

Kuna’s population has swelled from 15,960 in 2013 to 20,740 in 2018, a 30-percent gain in five years, according to Community Planning Organization of Southwest Idaho population estimates.

The D&B Supply in Kuna will be across Meridian Road from the Merrell Towne Center. Photo by Sharon Fisher.

Kuna has some 25 housing developments under construction, with 401 building permits issued in 2017 and 476 building permits issued through July 2018, according to Lisa Holland, Kuna’s economic development director.

“Kuna in particular has seen rapid housing growth,” Holland said. “The city is really ripe for economic development. The city’s priority is bringing in good employment and good commercial activity.”

Until now, all the commercial development has been at the southwest corner of Deer Flat and Meridian roads. D&B Supply is the first project announced for the southeast corner, where nine commercial pads are part of The Ashton Estates development, which will include 133 homes, according to Holland.

Originally started to serve farmers with 30 to 300 acres, D&B Supply continues to serve ranchers and farmers, but now also embraces backyard and porch gardeners, Schmitt said.

D&B has stores in nearly all the substantial population centers between Pendleton and Twin Falls. D&B opened its 12th store in Boise at Overland and Cole in 2012 after about a decade with no expansion. The 13th store followed in Emmett in 2015, and the most recent at a former Hastings Entertainment store on Boise’s southeast side in November 2017.

D&B also has stores in Mountain Home, Jerome, Garden City, La Grande, Baker City and Ontario.

“We’ve been fortunate to have a relationship with people in Kuna for a long time.” Schmitt said. “Now people in Kuna won’t have to go to Nampa or Caldwell to shop at D&B.”

Larson Architects of Garden City is the architect. RRC Contractors of Nampa is the general contractor.

Schmitt said he does not have a 16th store in mind yet. Along with opening new stores in recent years, the company is also focused on remodeling numerous stores.

Big office buildings headed to Chinden and Highway 16

Central Valley Plaza, starting with a 90,000-square-foot medical office building, will be built at Chinden and Highway 16. Image courtesy of Ball Ventures Ahlquist and Brighton Corp.

Downtown-worthy office buildings are on the way for the northwest corner of Meridian, where open landscape still dominates.

Local developers Tommy Ahlquist and David Turnbull see the eventual extension of Highway 16 south to Interstate 84 and the relentless Meridian westward residential crawl as the best ingredients to build Central Valley Plaza at the corner of Chinden Boulevard and Highway 16.

They announced the 71-acre, $100-million-plus Central Valley Plaza project Sept. 25 with intentions to start construction of a three-story, 90,000-square-foot medical office building anchored by HCAHealthcare in spring.

With inquiries already strong for retail and office space, Ahlquist believes the 1-acre retail pad and five-story, 120,000-square-foot second office building could start pretty close to the same time as the medical office building.

“A lot of CEOs live down there,” said Ahlquist, CEO of the newly established Meridian-based Ball Ventures Ahlquist (BVA) office development firm. “Why not have offices down there? There are people who don’t want to drive (to Boise) anymore.”

Ahlquist repeated the “don’t want to drive” line two more times during an interview with the Idaho Business Review.

He expects the medical office building to be complete in spring 2020.

HCAHealthcare sparked Central Valley Plaza

HCA was the driver to get Central Valley Plaza in motion. Turnbull, CEO of Brighton Corp., a Boise housing and commercial developer, has owned the Central Valley Plaza acreage since 2006. Ahlquist has had long relations with HCA executives, who some months back mentioned an interest to operate a third health care facility in Idaho. HCA already operates West Valley Medical Center in Caldwell and Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls.

Central Valley Plaza will have a mix of medical, office, retail and residential. Image courtesy of Ball Ventures Ahlquist and Brighton Corp.

BVA and Brighton teamed up to bring HCA to Central Valley Plaza. BVA and Brighton have been partners for two years on the Ten Crossing and Ten Mile Creek office commercial and residential development and will now partner on other Brighton developments at Century Farm, Barber Station and Paramount Square.

“David is one of the pillars of the community,” Ahlquist said of Turnbull. “A lot of his values and visions align with ours. Cortney (Liddiard, CEO Ball Ventures) gets along with David, too.

BVA was established in June on the heels of Ahlquist’s failed bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in May. Ahlquist left his post as chief operating officer at Gardner Company to enter into a partnership with Idaho Falls-based developer Ball Ventures.

Ball Ventures and Gardner were already partners in the downtown Boise mixed-use Pioneer Crossing with the new Hilton Garden Inn, Panera Bread, Boise Chamber of Commerce, a garage and future home of First Interstate Bank. Ball Ventures owned 80 percent of Pioneer Crossing, and BVA recently bought out Gardner at Pioneer Crossing and Ten Mile Crossing, Ahlquist said.

More buildings coming to Ten Mile Crossing

Brighton Corp. will move into the third office building under construction at Ten Mile Crossing. Photo by Teya Vitu.

Ten Mile Crossing has AmeriBen and Paylocity in the first two completed office buildings with Brighton planning to move into the third office building now under construction. BVA has its office in the Paylocity building.

Ten Mile Crossing should see 2019 construction starts on its fourth and fifth office buildings, both five stories and 120,000 square feet. One will be an AmeriBen expansion and the other a free-standing structure, Ahlquist said.

Several smaller office buildings will be announced in coming weeks, he added.

Turnbull was not available for interview but said in a press release: “Our goal at Brighton has always been to create the finest quality real estate projects in the Treasure Valley. Central Valley Plaza will bring much-needed services to north Meridian, and we are thrilled to partner with BVA on this site and our properties throughout the valley.”

A five-story, 120,000-square-foot expansion will be built on the pad next to AmeriBen. Photo by Teya Vitu.

Central Valley Plaza will also include the fourth Veranda senior housing facility, but construction is not expected to start until 2020. BVA and Brighton co-own the Veranda brand with assisted living, memory care and independent living with Veranda Paramount open in Meridian, Veranda Barber Station in southeast Boise under construction, and Veranda Century Farm in Meridian starting construction soon.

Central Valley Plaza will also have a row of flex office space with luxury office and roll-up garage doors in the back.

Ahlquist expects to build out the development in four years.

Three-suite retail strip awaits tenants in Kuna

A retail strip center is under construction next to Domino’s Pizza in Kuna. Photo by Sharon Fisher.

JRW Construction of Eagle is building its first retail strip center in Kuna on a half-acre lot that owner James Wylie has owned for more than 10 years.

Wylie and his sons, Jake and Erik, started construction at the end of May on a 4,054-square-foot, three-storefront structure with a drive-thru window next to Domino’s Pizza on Kuna Roadt.

The Wylie family is building on speculation with no tenants lined up. Structural work should finish in September, Jake Wylie said.

“It is a retail building but we have had interest from office, food and retail,” Wylie said.

The Wylie family has built several retail strips, including strips on the southwest corner of Chinden Boulevard and Linder Road. Many developers insist on pre-leasing space before building, but Wylie said they are confident the space will fill. Kuna is one of the fastest-growing communities in the Treasure Valley, reporting nearly 30 percent growth between 2010 and 2017.

“We’ve done a number of strip malls in the past,” he said. “We’ve done OK. You see new buildings and businesses popping up everywhere right now.”

The Wylie family owns the property as Kuna LLC and is the general contractor as JRW Construction.  JGT Architecture of Nampa is the architect.

Kuna has fewer than 20 strip retail centers, said Troy Behunin, senior planner at the city of Kuna.

“This is only the first of three commercial subdivisions coming to Kuna and there is talk of two more,” Behunin said.