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Tag: Commercial Real Estate

Las Vegas-based Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop eyes the Treasure Valley

Capriotti's Sandwich Shop has 36 stores in its home city of Las Vegas. Photo courtesy of Capriotti's Sandwich Shop.
Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop has 36 stores in its home city of Las Vegas. Photo courtesy of Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop.

Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop, the Las Vegas-based fast-casual chain, is looking at downtown Boise and the Eagle Road area in Meridian as locations for a first Idaho store, targeted for a third quarter 2018 opening, the franchisee said.

Ken Cassas and Anthony Reviglio are Reno-based new franchise holders with Capriotti’s who are planning to open their first store in Reno in September.

“Originally, I wanted to move directly into Boise before Reno,” Reviglio said. “I didn’t think I could get into the Reno market.”

Another franchisee already has three Reno Capriotti’s, but Capriotti’s management told Cassas and Reviglio there was room for more stores in Reno and they should get started in their hometown first.

Capriotti’s specializes in sub sandwiches, especially in-house, slow-roasted turkey, and also has soups and salads.

Both the Reno duo and Capriotti’s independently had eyes on Boise in the past year. Capriotti’s presently has 103 stores in 13 states and Washington, D.C., with 36 of them in the Las Vegas metro, said David Bloom, Capriotti’s chief development officer.

Capriotti’s has stores in California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona but not farther north. The Treasure Valley store is expected to open before any in Oregon and Washington, where Capriotti’s is also looking.

Capriotti’s joins other national restaurant chains that in the past year or so have committed to Idaho before Oregon and Washington, a recent shift from Idaho being the 47th or higher state and following Oregon and Washington to get a national brand.

David Bloom
David Bloom

“You’re just talking about Portland and Seattle,” Bloom said. “Both are very expensive and pretty tight (with available real estate). Boise has really good sites. You can find them and they are available. Portland and Seattle also has higher minimum wages than other cities.

“Boise’s become a really good town. It’s growing well,” Bloom continued. “It’s relatively close (to Las Vegas). Even though we are new to the market, people in Boise come to Las Vegas. There is some brand awareness already in the (Boise) market.”

The Reno duo taps into different metrics to find favor in Boise.

“I love Boise,” Reviglio said. “It’s very similar to Reno, minus the casinos. I like the smaller-town aspect Boise has but it has big city amenities. I’ve been to Boise several times the last couple years visiting family and friends. It’s potentially a great market.”

Ken Cassas and Anthony Riviglio
Ken Cassas and Anthony Riviglio

Whether downtown Boise or Eagle Road, Reviglio is leaning toward building a stand-alone building. Within 18 to 30 months, he wants to have two Capriotti’s open in Treasure Valley. He has a franchise agreement for five stores in Reno and Idaho. Twin Falls is a possibility, Reviglio said.

Wright Brothers will be the general contractor in Boise. An architect has not been selected, he said.

The Boise store comes in the first two years of Capriotti’s wide expansion expected to increase the store count to 500 by 2025, Bloom said.

The company was founded in Delaware in 1976 but company founder Lois Margolet moved to Las Vegas brought along the Capriotti’s headquarters in 1990. The current owners acquired Capriotti’s eight years ago and entered the current aggressive expansion mode two years ago, Bloom said.

Capriotti’s added Oklahoma and Illinois in 2016 and opened a first Indiana store in March. The first Tennessee store is opening in the coming months.

Along with free-standing stores, Capriotti’s is in seven Las Vegas casinos and at some airports and convention centers.

 

 

Terry Reilly Health Services acquires former Penny Wise building in Caldwell

The former Penny Wise building in Caldwell will become a Terry Reilly Health Services clinic. Photo courtesy of Lee & Associates.
The former Penny Wise building in Caldwell will become a Terry Reilly Health Services clinic. Photo courtesy of Lee & Associates.

Terry Reilly Health Services will move its Caldwell clinic from behind the West Valley Medical Center to the heart of downtown.

Terry Reilly on March 6 closed on the purchase of the former Penny Wise Drug Store building at 802 Cleveland Blvd., two blocks from the city of Caldwell’s Indian Creek Plaza redevelopment project.

“One of the things we’re really excited about is being part of what the city of Caldwell is doing in the downtown corridor,” said Heidi Hart, Terry Reilly’s executive director.

The Penny Wise building has sat empty since the drug store closed in November 2014. The College of Idaho has owned the building since 1986, when it received the property as a gift.

The sale price was not disclosed.

“We had outgrown that facility (on Arlington Street),” Hart said. “We need more space. Caldwell is the place we want to make the next investment in providing accessible health care.”

Terry Reilly is a community health center that provides mental, health and dental services. It has 16 clinics in Boise, Nampa, Caldwell, Middleton, Homedale, Marsing and Melba.

Caldwell now has only mental and health services. The Penny Wise building will allow Terry Reilly to add dental, Hart said.

Hart said neither a timeline for opening the new clinic nor the cost of tenant improvements has been determined. Nor has a decision been made on whether there will be a capital campaign.

 

Alturas Capital buys and fills Entertainment Avenue office building

Alturas Capital is the new owner of the Fourteen Forty-Four office building near Overland and Cole roads. Photo courtesy of CBC Advisors.
Alturas Capital is the new owner of the Fourteen Forty-Four office building near Overland and Cole roads. Photo courtesy of CBC Advisors.

Eagle-based Alturas Capital has nearly filled the 83,284-square-foot Fourteen Forty-Four office building, 1444 S. Entertainment Ave., since buying the five-story, Class A office building for an undisclosed price Dec. 16.

Over the winter, Alturas, working with CBC Advisors, signed on Truckstop.com, ClickBank, and CBC Advisors as tenants, said Sherry Schoen, vice president of retail and office at CBC Advisors.

Alturas Capital acquired a building that had been 60 percent empty since it was built in 2006.  Layton Construction, which built the structure, and Stevens-Henager College were the only tenants for many years, said Schoen, the building leasing agent who also represented the seller, Anthem Boise LLC, headed by Carl B. Barney of Crystal Bay, Nev.

“He’s selling his whole portfolio in Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Idaho,” Schoen said about Barney, who had owned the property since the beginning. “It’s just time for him to sell.”

Alturas Capital owns Eagle View Plaza, Eagle Marketplace, Treasure Valley Crossing in Nampa, the Westpark industrial building, 110 Main in Boise and properties in Washington and Utah.

Alturas specializes in turning around under-performing properties, said Blake Hansen, managing partner at Alturas Capital.

“We have always wondered why a Class-A office building at this location would struggle to find tenants, with its central location, accessibility to the interstate and visibility from the interstate,” Hansen said in an e-mail to the IBR.  “We were confident that with local ownership, we could find tenants to fill the vacancy.”

Lane Austin, chief operating office of Truckstop.com, said the building’s location made it easily accessible for employees coming from all directions. He added that ample parking at the site was a plus.

“It was also relatively close to the airport, which was a convenience for our out-of-town guests,” he said. “The location is also surrounded by many services that create conveniences for our guests such as restaurants, retail and hotels.”

Fourteen Forty-Four is assessed at $5.56 million, according to the Ada County Assessor.

Idaho Youth Ranch will move Fairview store into former Kmart building

Idaho Youth Ranch is one of three new tenants named so far for the former Kmart building on Fairview Avenue. Photo by Teya Vitu.
Idaho Youth Ranch is one of three new tenants named so far for the former Kmart building on Fairview Avenue. Photo by Teya Vitu.

Nearly half the former Kmart building on Fairview Avenue on Boise’s west side has tenants signed up to move in this September.

Idaho Youth Ranch is the third tenant announced for the 84,000-square-foot-structure. The IYR thrift store, Johnny’s Fit Club Fitness and Vector Christian Center will each occupy 12,600 square feet in 60-by-210-foot that span the length of the store, said Bob Mitchell, retail specialist at Thornton Oliver Keller Commercial Real Estate.

Kmart closed the store in March 2016. The three new tenants signed leases in February, Mitchell said.

He is in discussions with a potential fourth tenant with “offers going back and forth,” he said.

The Idaho Youth Ranch thrift store will remain in the same shopping center as it moves into the former Kmart building. Photo by Teya Vitu.
The Idaho Youth Ranch thrift store will remain in the same shopping center as it moves into the former Kmart building. Photo by Teya Vitu.

Idaho Youth Ranch is moving its Fairview store into the Kmart building from the east end of the same shopping center. The company expects a 20 percent increase in business with the short lateral move, said Jeff Myers, vice president of social enterprise.

“The end of the center where we are at is developed with pads on the street and trees obscure our shop (in back),” Myers said. “Visibility is pretty limited for us.”

The Idaho Youth Ranch store is not easily seen from the street at its current Fairview Avenue location. Photo by Teya Vitu.
The Idaho Youth Ranch store is not easily seen from the street at its current Fairview Avenue location. Photo by Teya Vitu.

The Fairview store performs in the “middle of the pack” at IYR’s 29 stores across the state, he said. The IYR thrift stores carry clothing and household goods with revenue dedicated to Idaho Youth Ranch programs.

IYR was ending a five-year lease extension after 10 years at the current Fairview location. The company is reevaluating other Treasure Valley leases as they expire, with plans to move a couple more stores in the next two years, Myers said.

This follows several years of relocating old downtown stores to more popular shopping centers in places like Idaho Falls and Pocatello, Myers said.

Awaiting litigation, Ketchum finds another way to impose affordable housing fees

Ketchum City Hall. File photo.
Ketchum City Hall. The City Council requires developers to include affordable housing in their plans or pay a fee if the project’s floor space exceeds the property’s square footage. File photo.

As Ketchum’s ordinance to have developers include affordable housing in certain projects remained tied up in litigation, the City Council on March 6 approved on emergency motion to move forward with the spirit of the ordinance through individual agreements with developers.

The move takes the elements of Ketchum’s floor area ratios and community housing ordinance from being a law and instead makes it part of the development agreement negotiations.

“It’s basically the same thing,” said Lisa Enourato, assistant to the city administrator. “What’s different is it’s an agreement. Because it’s an agreement, we work with one another to come to an agreement. The parties get to have an ability to make a decision as to whether to move forward.”

The city will still call for developers to include affordable housing or pay a fee if a project’s floor space exceeds the property’s square footage, a measurement known as 1.0 floor area ratio or FAR.

“This will allow all parties to continue working in partnership to ensure Ketchum’s affordable housing needs are still prioritized,” Mayor Nina Jonas wrote in her March 3 letter to the community. Supporting affordable housing initiatives is critically important to the City – and to me. We need to continue to work and collaborate with developers, Ketchum residents, and the City itself to ensure our shared affordable housing needs are met. “

The City Council’s agreement is a reaction to a Jan. 27 lawsuit filed in Blaine County Fifth District Court in Hailey by developer Scot Ludwig, who objected to $840,000 in community housing in-lieu of fees from Ketchum for his proposed three-story, 37,000-square, condo-and-retail project on 16,500 square feet in downtown Ketchum. Ludwig, an attorney, is also Boise City Council member.

Ludwig believes the ordinance is unconstitutional and said the new agreement is as well.

“I think it’s worse than the ordinance they replaced. At least the former ordinance had a formula for exactly how much the illegal tax would be,” he said. “What’s worse about the emergency ordinance is the amount of the illegal tax becomes discretionary and will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.”

Ludwig expects the lawsuit to proceed up the judicial ladder.

“It needs to get to the (Idaho) Supreme Court,” Ludwig said.

The city has not stated its position on the lawsuit.

“The city is responding to the lawsuit,” Enourato said. “The city’s filing is currently pending.”

Jonas, however, in her community letter wrote: “Uncertain about the outcome of this case, and upon the advice of our legal counsel, we have been examining how best to continue working in partnership with developers while the lawsuit progresses and how we might achieve similar goals through different means.”

The ordinance must undergo three public readings before it is official. The first reading was March 6, the second reading is scheduled for March 20 and the City Council intends to waive a third meeting.

“We want to keep projects in the pipeline moving,” Enourato said.

C.W. Moore Plaza penthouse gets a makeover

Vinyl wood simulation planks and a color scheme of gray, dark gray, black and white will redecorate the penthouse at C.W. Moore Plaza. Image courtesy of Sarah Cunningham.
Vinyl wood simulation planks and a color scheme of gray, dark gray, black and white will redecorate the penthouse at C.W. Moore Plaza. Image courtesy of Sarah Cunningham.

The ninth floor penthouse at C.W. Moore Plaza is getting a makeover with new flooring, color scheme and revamped bar.

The 1,998-square-foot room and adjoining 1,919-square-foot terrace is home to Zee’s Rooftop Café and a popular venue for public events.

Zee’s owner Christopher Zahn brought in Sarah Cunningham of Ethos Design + Remodel & Real Estate to update a space that has essentially remained the same since the tower opened in 1999.

The $120,000 project started in mid-February and should be ready for the first guests in mid-April, Cunningham said.

Her design replaces the vinyl composition tile flooring with luxury vinyl wood simulation planks. The sand-colored walls will give way to a combination of gray, dark gray, black and white.

“The updated design will cater to the metropolitan as well as the nature-loving outdoor enthusiast and everyone in between,” Cunningham said. “It’s calmer because of the wood look on the floor.”

Cunningham is also extending the small wall that sets the kitchen off from the room to create a bigger separation from kitchen to event space.

A second renovation phase, likely in 2018, will bring in new lighting and a new audio/visual system, she said.

 

LongHorn Steakhouse will replace Chili’s at Franklin and Milwaukee

LongHorn Steakhouse will build a new restaurant in the Franklin Towne Plaza. Image from the Boise Planning & Development Services website.
LongHorn Steakhouse will build a new restaurant in the Franklin Towne Plaza. Image from the Boise Planning & Development Services website.

The LongHorn Steakhouse restaurant chain will replace the Chili’s Grill & Bar at Franklin Road and Milwaukee in the Franklin Towne Plaza.

LongHorn will demolish the 5,093-square-foot Chili’s building that was constructed in 1990 and build a new 5,593-square-foot restaurant, according to city of Boise Planning & Development Services documents.

The Chili’s is expected to close in May, said John Little, vice president of operations at Pardigm Restaurants, which acquired the seven Chili’s stores in Idaho in October through U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Great Falls, Mont.

LongHorn Steakhouse will demolish the Chili's Grill & Bar building that has been at Franklin and Milwaukee since 1990. Photo by Teya Vitu.
LongHorn Steakhouse will demolish the Chili’s Grill & Bar building that has been at Franklin and Milwaukee since 1990. Photo by Teya Vitu.

“This has nothing to do with us,” Little said. “The previous owner had an offer from LongHorn. It was definitely not our choice.”

This LongHorn Steakhouse will be the first in Idaho. LongHorn, founded in 1981 in Atlanta, has more than 470 restaurants in 40 states but none in Oregon and Washington and only three in Utah.

LongHorn is a division of Darden Restaurants, which also owns Olive Garden.

The architect is GHA Architecture of Dallas, Texas.

Tropical Smoothie Café plans its first Idaho store

Atlanta-based Tropical Smoothie Café will open its first Idaho franchise in summer at the Calderwood North Shopping Center on Overland Road near Maple Grove Road.

Tropical Smoothie has 555 locations in 41 states, but so far has a paltry presence in the Northwest, with only three stores in Washington, none in Oregon and six in Utah.

Local Tropical Smoothie franchise holders Kory and Michelle Pukash have an agreement to open five stores in Idaho with the right to first refusal in the entire state, company publicist Courtney Whelan said.

Kory Pukash said they plan to open a second store at Broadway and Beacon Street and others in downtown Boise, Caldwell and Eagle with desires to expand to Pocatello, Idaho Falls and Twin Falls and later to Coeur d’Alene and Spokane.

The Pukashes in 2010 established BloodyFine Foods, a Bloody Mary mix company, in Boise.

Tropical Smoothie opened its first store in 1997 in Tallahassee, Fla. The restaurants serve smoothies, wraps, sandwiches, flatbreads and salads.

Tropical Smoothie was expected to appear March 8 before the city of Boise’s Design Review Committee.

Cushman & Wakefield Pacific represented Tropical Smoothie in the 1,640-square-foot lease negotiations.

Magic Valley’s largest car dealer buys shuttered Twin Cinema 12

Goode Auto Motor Group will keep part of the old Twin Cinema 12 structure as it converts the property into a Mazda dealership. Image courtesy of Goode Auto Motor Group.
Goode Auto Motor Group will keep part of the old Twin Cinema 12 structure as it converts the property into a Mazda dealership. Image courtesy of Goode Auto Motor Group.

Burley-based Goode Auto Motor Group in January bought the closed-down 12-screen Twin Cinema 12 movie theater in Twin Falls.

Goode will move its Twin Falls Mazda dealership, which shares a property with the Goode Volkswagen dealership, to the 6.1-acre movie property on Eastland Drive. Good Auto has seven dealerships in Burley, Twin Falls and Hailey.

The Twin Cinema property will also house Goode’s central reconditioning center for used cars, which is about 200 yards down the street, Goode owner Matt Cook said.

“We’ll keep a pretty big part of (the theater complex), probably half of it,” Cook said. “There’s big, open space for shop space.”

Twin Cinema 12 in Twin Falls closed down in 2014. Photo courtesy of Westerra Real Estate Group.
Twin Cinema 12 in Twin Falls closed down in 2014. Photo courtesy of Westerra Real Estate Group.

Twin Cinema 12 shut down in June 2014. The Twin Cinema opened in 1969 with one screen and was gradually expanded to 12 screens by 1996.

A broker brought the cinema property to Cook’s attention last summer as Cook sought options for a bigger reconditioning center and splitting his Volkswagen and Mazda dealerships. Cook initially turned down the idea but then saw merit in the movie theater property.

Cook did not disclose the purchase price. The Twin Falls County Assessor assessed the property at $723,881.

“We are aiming to preserve at least one of the theaters and offer it as a community forum,” said Caitlyn Lancaster, marketing director Goode Motor Auto Group. “The one we’re hoping to preserve still has seating. It’s one of the larger theaters. It will be free of charge to whomever wants to book it.”

Hailey architect Errin Bliss is the project architect. A general contractor has not been selected.

Aura Soma Lava Hot Springs property is for sale

Evelee Hill and Robert E. Rush started Aura Soma Lava Hot Springs in the trees (rear right) and later acquired the one-story motel building center. Hill in recent years added the two-story buildings. Photo courtesy of Evelee Hill.
Evelee Hill and Robert E. Rush started Aura Soma Lava Hot Springs in the trees (rear right) and later acquired the one-story motel building center. Hill in recent years added the two-story buildings. Photo courtesy of Evelee Hill.

The 3.3-acre Aura Soma Lava Hot Springs in Lava Hot Springs is available for $3.99 million.

Owner Evelee Hill, who is a broker, has not technically put her hospitality operation on the market, but she has talked with a couple of prospective buyers.

The property includes 20 rooms in several buildings, a hot spring pool, a 1911 house, and a 1920s caretaker’s house that Hill and her late husband, Robert E. Rush, acquired in 1995 along with 2.3 acres of wooded land in a bend of the Portneuf River in Lava Hot Springs.

Over the next 17 years, the pair acquired five parcels from five owners to create a single 3.3-acre property with Main Street frontage.

“If you don’t have a Main Street frontage, you have nothing,” Hill said.

Evelee Hill
Evelee Hill

Rush, a Pocatello physician, died in 2011. Since then, Hill has has built two two-story buildings on the property, and in March she plans to open a massage studio and spa upstairs in the new building on Main Street. The property also has a sauna.

But Hill is eager to pass on the entire Aura Soma Lava property to a new owner.

“I’m 71,” said Hill, who also owns a Boise office building at Hayes Street and Harrison Boulevard. “I want to play. I don’t want to have the responsibility of hiring and firing.”

After acquiring the property, the two first added an adjacent property to the south in 1998 with a 1,116-square-foot manufactured house that Hill now calls The Meadows and rents out as a vacation home. In 2000, they acquired the Old Oregon Trail Motel on Main Street and remodeled the eight rooms, and in 2004 they added the four-room Courtyard building next to the Meadows property.

Hill in 2014 sold a property to Hilton Hotels that she and Rush had owned in Moab, Utah, and used the money to build the two-story buildings. In 2015, Hill built the first one with eight guest rooms directly behind to former Old Oregon Trail, and in 2016, she built a two-story office building adjoining the Old Oregon Trail building at the corner of Main and Second Avenue East.

Balsam Brands trades Meridian corporate park for downtown Boise history

Balsam Brands will move its e-commerce administrative offices into the Union Block building in downtown Boise. Photo by Teya Vitu.
Balsam Brands will move its e-commerce administrative offices into the Union Block building in downtown Boise. Photo by Teya Vitu.

Artificial Christmas tree and home décor e-commerce retailer Balsam Brands is moving its administrative offices from the anonymity of Meridian’s Central Valley Corporate Park to the Romanesque-style Union Block building erected in downtown Boise in 1901.

The move fits the corporate culture of the Redwood City, Calif.,-based company. It doesn’t even have a coffee machine because managers want employees to get out and shop nearby, said Jennifer Couch, Balsam’s director of organic marketing.

Balsam Brands will fill much of the second floor of the Union Block with its offices, primarily in the former Rose Room ballroom/event center, which will remain an open office space. The company plans the move next summer.

“We’re a very open environment,” Couch said. “All the employees here are excited to be in the heart of downtown Boise.”

For decades, the Rose Room hosted weddings, concerts, meetings and over events.

“The ballroom has been a memorable gathering place for many Boiseans,” Union Block owner Kenneth Howell said in a release. “Balsam Brands will bring a new chapter, new people, and new memories to this historic ballroom and building.”

Balsam Brands, based in the San Francisco Bay area, was founded in 2006 by Thomas Harman, who first expanded to the Philippines in 2010 and then opened a second administrative office in Meridian in 2011. At that time, the company had only 20 employees.

Balsam Brands has since grown to 120 employees with $100 million in annual revenue and an additional location in Ireland. The Meridian office has 20 employees but that is projected to double in the next two or three years, Couch said.

The company’s vice presidents of finance and operations work out of the Idaho office. Some human resources staff will likely be added in Boise, Couch said.

Ketchum’s Strider Group plans a second office in Boise

Strider Group will fill half of the Griffin Creek offices it is developing in Boise. Image courtesy of CTA Group.
Strider Group will fill half of the Griffin Creek offices it is developing in Boise. Image courtesy of CTA Group.

Strider Group started as a Ketchum developer in 2012 just as the economy was thawing. Now the company is planning to build a Boise office on Ardene Street, just off Overland Road and a touch west from Wal-Mart.

Strider proposes building a 5,500-square-foot Griffin Creek Office building. Its office will take up half, and the other half is being built on spec, said Eiron Schofield., the  company vice president.

Strider, owned by Scott Thomson, owns and manages a number of Treasure Valley commercial properties and is building two Class A industrial buildings set for completion in April in Caldwell and in Boise on Gowen Road near Eisenman Road.

Strider is watching construction costs to determine a start date for Griffin Creek. Construction would take 10 to 12 months, Schofield said.

The Boise office will be larger than Strider’s Ketchum office, with a similar number of employees to start. Strider may eventually fill the entire Griffin Creek building, she said.

Strider headquarters will remain in Ketchum, Schofield said.

CTA Group in Boise is the architect, and Layton Construction is the general contractor.