Idaho Falls city leaders have big plans for downtown redevelopment

After years of no action, the city of Idaho Falls has a plan for downtown redevelopment it wants to move forward with.

“Downtowns are important. This is the place that tells our story,” said Brad Cramer, director for Community Development Services. “This is the place that is unique. There is no other place in this area that is built like our downtown, so we want to preserve it, but we also want to allow new things to happen in a way that is appropriate.”

City leaders have been working with an architect out of Salt Lake City for the past several months to come up with a long-term plan for redevelopment in the downtown area. The goal of the new plans would be to bring life back into the historic part of town. In preliminary plans presented to the city, architects hope to build on the uniqueness of downtown Idaho Falls and find a way to work the proximity to the Snake River into the design.

“One of things we are looking at specifically is how to connect the river to the downtown,” said Cramer. “We want to find a way to pull people from the river into downtown and vice-versa and really make the connection. Is that pedestrian connection? Is it the events? We are looking at the tools to connect the two.”

The architects behind the proposed plan want to build on the love of the outdoors Idahoans have, writing “…there are many improvements that can be made to streets and sidewalks that add beauty and safety of the streets in the the downtown area,” in their plan. One idea they have proposed is to add more street-siding dining options throughout the downtown area.

“There have been a few businesses who have tried it,” downtown business owner Indy Fowler said. “It works really well. People love to be outside. We have great summers, great springs, great fall.”

Also in the plan is a motion to create green spaces throughout downtown, add bike lanes to city streets and reconfigure many of the streets throughout the downtown area to allow for the development of a public transportation system. The goal of it all, Cramer said, is to make downtown come alive and to bring people to town.

“A couple of the ideas include what about temporarily closing a street, for an example, on Saturdays to do festivals and farmers markets and those kinds of activities to get people here to enjoy the downtown,” said Cramer. “[We are looking at] what are we missing to get people down here?”

The plan would be a major overhaul, but it would be done in phases to cut down on cost and to finish the project more quickly. They want to use a strategy called ‘tactical urbanism.’

“It’s a strategy to try things out in a less expensive way and see if they work first,” said Cramer. “If they work, then you add on it and do a little bit more until you’ve really built out the full project. It allows you to experiment in a way that is a little bit faster, a little bit cheaper and you don’t have to invest all that [money] with the hope that it works out.”

Long-term, the city hopes to add more housing throughout downtown. The current plan does not have address how to make that happen. Cramer says those talks will happen as the project develops over the next several months to years.

“We know that there is a market that would support more housing [downtown]. The Urban Renewal Agency about a year ago had a study done of the downtown and they said the residence to jobs ratio was far below not only what the national average is, but also what the typical market can support,” Cramer stated.

Cramer told KIFI/KIDK that the key to this plan is to move forward with implementation of it. He pointed to a stack of downtown redevelopment studies dating back to the 19070’s that had been completed but never had action taken on them.

“I think we are getting new blood and we have people who are genuinely motivated to growing downtown and making it a more fun and exciting environment,” downtown business owner Indy Fowler said.

The plans proposed by the architect are not final. The city wants to gather public input before moving forward with a final plan in April or May. An open house will be held to gather public feedback. It will take place on Tuesday, January 31, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Idaho Falls Public library on West Broadway.