Developers want to build 800+ new apartments in Boise. Some may be in your neighborhood

Treasure Valley home builders have performed an interesting, complicated dance the last few years as they’ve dodged high interest rates, costly real estate, inflated construction costs, supply-chain issues and a labor shortage.

With rents far higher than they were five years ago — increasing nearly $400 per month to an average of $1,513 for one-bedroom to four-bedroom apartments in the Boise metro area from 2020 to 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — developers have overcome those challenges to put up new apartments in Boise, changing the fabric of the city.

People ask: What could that vacant lot across my street become? Am I going to have apartment-dwellers looking down into my backyard? What could the skyline look like in a few years?

Here’s a look at five large multifamily developments under construction or planned that would add 820 homes to Boise.

1. Affordable apartments in the Central Bench

On a previously vacant patch of grass at 6160 W. Denton St., south of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center and catty-corner to Liberty Park, Boise’s Hawkins Cos and Eagle’s The Pacific Cos. are building a five-story, 193-unit apartment building.

The building is unlike most others in the area. Hawkins is saving all 193 units for people earning less than 80% of the area median income in an attempt to provide affordable housing for a city that has struggled to keep up with its growing population.

For a two-person household in 2024, 80% of the area median income is $62,750 per year, according to the city of Boise. Rent at that income level is capped at $1,569 per month, which is 30% of the renters’ income.

Like many other areas across the country, the Treasure Valley has been thrown into an aching affordable-housing shortage as demand outpaces the supply of homes.

In 2022, the city commissioned a housing needs analysis that found Boise needed to build 2,770 homes per year for the next decade to meet demand. The city had missed the mark by over 4,100 homes in the three years prior to the study.

Over three-quarters of the real estate demand is for those making 80% or less than the area median income, according to the study.

Building new apartments can be an expensive endeavor as developers must not only recoup the costs they pour into a project, such as architectural and labor costs, but also make enough for the business to stay afloat. This, in part, is why rents for new apartments can be so high.

In comparison, affordable apartments receive tax credits and taxpayer-funded grants to help cover costs and keep rents at a more manageable level.

“Housing is needed, period,” Brian Huffaker, president and CEO of Hawkins Cos., said by phone. “Whether it’s market rate or affordable housing.”

The apartments help satisfy a need for more affordable housing in the area, he said, especially as it caters to the hospital and its workers.

“We just felt it was the right area for that affordable-housing product,” Huffaker said.

Crews likely won’t finish construction until spring 2026, Huffaker said.

The ground floor would include a lobby, leasing offices, space for a future office or day care, and fitness and storage areas, according to an application filed with the city.

“The site is located near the Emerald transit corridor, which provides a direct multiuse conduit to downtown Boise as well as great access to medical services and employment opportunities,” according to a 2022 letter from Seattle-based GGLO architecture firm. “The development reinforces Blueprint Boise goals to establish the Central Bench as a key area of affordable growth for the city.”

2. Apartments near a movie theater? Maybe

Hawkins Cos. also submitted a concept plan in December for a 174-unit apartment complex spread among two four-story buildings and one three-story building at 1770 S. Maple Grove Road, about a mile west of the Regal Edwards Boise movie theater and just south of the Sonic Drive-In on Overland Road.

The complex would include one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, a roughly 5,000-square-foot clubhouse with a pool, two amenity areas, a playground and a dog park, according to a letter submitted by Ethan Mansfield, predevelopment project manager for Hawkins.

An early site plan for the 6.2-acre complex calls for 84 one-, 84 two- and 16 three-bedroom market-rate units along with 293 parking spaces. The plan shows a building on the northwest corner of the site, another in the center and the third on the eastern edge south of a Buddhist temple.

But the apartments are on shaky footing after the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission denied the project in its current form during a July 8 hearing. Huffaker said there are still avenues to seeing it come to life.

“We recognize that it’s a bit of an uphill battle to work through any kind of denial,” Huffaker said.

The commission denied the application mostly because it exceeded density limits for the site. It falls within the Boise Airport’s influence zone, which limits density to five units per acre. The application proposed nearly six times over that at 28 units per acre.

Much of the concern, though, was over sound from aircraft. Rebecca Hupp, director of the Boise Airport, spoke during the hearing and recommended that the commission consider the noise pollution from a growing airport.

“Aircraft will be flying directly over this particular development,” Hupp said.

Huffaker said the development would be outside the 65-decibel area of the airport’s noise contour map, which shows where noise levels from aircraft are distributed around the airport. For comparison, a normal conversation is about 60-70 decibels, and noise in a business office is about 60-65 decibels.

The Federal Aviation Administration says areas with a noise exposure level of 65 decibels and higher are “significantly” impacted by noise, according to a study commissioned by the city of Boise.

“We’re well outside of that particular measurement,” Huffaker said. “We feel there is no clear understanding of when the city relies on the (airport influence area) or on the noise contour map in making decisions.”

Huffaker said Hawkins is considering appealing to the City Council.

Single-family homes border the proposed site on three sides, while businesses line the northern edge. The 30-unit Maple Grove Apartments are about a quarter mile north of the site.

3. ‘Urban flats’ near Boise State

Eagle-based The Land Group submitted an application in January on behalf of Payette Forward of Austin, Texas, for a two-building apartment development at 1519 S. Londoner Ave., south of Parkcenter Park and east of Broadway Avenue.

According to a May 30 report, the development would include 189 units in two, three-story buildings and two “urban flat” buildings with four units. It would also include 250 parking spots and space for ground-floor retail, a leasing office, amenity space, pool and dog park.

The apartments would be about a mile east of the Boise State University campus and just southwest of Parkcenter Park.

The 5.7-acre site is mostly filled with commercial and industrial businesses and a few homes off Highland Street, near the already-approved 14-townhouse Greenheads End development that faced scrutiny in 2020 over the cutting down of a 60-foot, 70-year-old Sequoia tree.

The Land Group previously submitted an application in 2021 to turn the same site into 43 single-family homes, but the Planning and Zoning Commission denied that application over concerns that it was not dense enough.

The Land Group did not return a call requesting comment.

4. Hobble Creek Park town houses

Meridian-based Brighton Corp. is breathing life into a previously approved development that would see the construction of 20 buildings at 12673 W. Ashcreek St. north of Centennial High School and southwest of the Ada County Highway District’s newly purchased headquarters.

The West Boise YMCA and Hobble Creek Park are about a quarter-mile to the northwest of the nearly 6.5-acre site, where Brighton is hoping to build 58 one- and 58 two-bedroom apartments and 40 three-bedroom town houses.

Plans call for one two-story apartment building, nine three-story apartment buildings and 10 two-story town house buildings in a straight line along Ashcreek Street.

According to a planning department review, the plan was originally approved in 2022 for 128 units, but that permit has since expired. That application sought to build three- and four-unit town house buildings and “stacked flats” that would include four- and eight-unit buildings.

Brighton’s new application boosts the number from 128 to 156 units under the city’s new zoning code that went live in December, which allows for greater density.

The next step for the project would be to get approval from the city’s Design Review Commission during a public hearing, according to a department review.

Brighton did not return a call requesting comment.

5. Hillcrest Shopping Center apartments

Have you ever been to the Hillcrest Shopping Center at Overland Road and Orchard Street, maybe to pick up groceries at Albertsons or drop off a book at the library, and wondered what was going on with that giant patch of dirt and grass on the west side of the parking lot?

You’re probably not the only one.

That patch of grass at 1404 S. Phillippi St. was a former Fred Meyer grocery store that was torn down in 2010, according to prior Statesman reporting. Red Tail Acquisitions, of Irvine, California, proposed building apartments at the site in 2014, and the city approved permits, but they expired before any work began.

The company tried again in 2022 and got the green light to build 108 homes spread among six three-story apartment buildings, according to Red Tail’s 2022 application. The company sought to build 36 one- and 72 two-bedroom apartments along with a one-story clubhouse.

But it might take a while for the apartments to come to life after the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission approved a two-year time extension on July 1 for the development. Red Tail could request a second two-year extension if needed.

“Although the owners remain committed to completing the 108-unit apartment project, they have made the decision to delay the financing and bidding processes until 2025,” according to a June 10 letter from David Glancey of Boise architecture firm Glancey, Rockwell and Associates. “This delay is intended to allow for the possibility of securing more favorable financing terms and construction costs.”

Construction is scheduled to start in the middle to end of 2025, according to Glancey.

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