Idaho Falls looking to bring more residential units to downtown
Downtown Idaho Falls will be getting a little bit busier in the coming years as the city brings in more residential options.
“We’ve lacked that residential component,” said Brad Cramer, the Executive Director of the Idaho Falls Redevelopment Agency “When we conducted the housing study recently to make sure these projects are feasible, that is one thing that the study came back with was you have a market that will support quite a few more housing units.”
Several people who regularly visit downtown, had similar feelings to the results of the study.
“There’s apartments over on Shoup that they’re renting out now as I understand, and I’m interested in looking at those,” said Kay Chapman, a regular downtown visitor. “I think for older people and even younger people, having the ability to just walk around downtown, window shop, and just enjoy the entertainment would be really fun.”
“There are a lot of great venues. There are a lot of great things going on. But having some more urbanization could really help it make it more accessible to the public,” said Doug Knuth, another downtown visitor.
Urban apartment demand is one reason why the agency is requiring residential living space for two new proposed projects in downtown Idaho Falls.
One project will be on the empty lot on the corner of Broadway and Memorial. “We want to see if we can find a developer to build a multi-story building,” said Cramer. “The requirements say it would be between three and six stories high.It would be a mixed use type of facility. So something retail restaurant related on the ground floor, maybe some offices and some residential up towards the upper floors.”
The second project involves remaking and renewing the old Bonneville Hotel. “The idea there would be instead of building a new structure we’d use the existing structure,” said Cramer. “Find a developer to restore it according to its historic character, and restore some residential space as well.”
Cramer said the two projects are open for developer applications which are due May 2. He also said if everything goes according to plan, they could start to see actual construction a year from now.
