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City Center Plaza Ribbon Cutting

November 2, 2016

News & Notes

CCDC joined the Ribbon Cutting celebration last Thursday afternoon for the new City Center Plaza project. The event took place outside on The Grove Plaza facing the new Clearwater and Boise Centre East buildings. Boise State’s cheerleaders and marching band performed before remarks were given by several local and state officials as well as representatives from the developer, Gardner Company, and buildings’ new tenants and owners, Clearwater, BSU, Valley Regional Transit, and Boise Centre. CCDC Commissioner Pat Shalz gave remarks on behalf of CCDC Board and staff that are included below. A short clip of his speech is also available HERE.

We want to extend a big Congratulations to Gardner Company, Boise Center, Valley Regional Transit, Clearwater Analytics, and Boise State for completing this extensive project. CCDC welcomes Boise Center East, Boise State University, Clearwater Analytics, and Main Street Station to The Grove Plaza!

On behalf of the nine CCDC commissioners and the agency’s 14 employees I want to congratulate The Gardner Company on this unprecedented and incomparable achievement in downtown Boise.  The Gardner team that worked closely with CCDC–Tommy, Tom, Geoff, Jen, David, Ryan and others–deserves a lot of credit for doing something extremely bold, some may even say it was a harebrained idea, which will benefit the Central District and entire downtown for generations to come.  What a huge step forward for multimodal transportation, for Boise’s convention business, and for commerce in Idaho’s capitol city!

CCDC has consistently been supportive and helpful in all aspects of this ambitious development at The Grove Plaza for many reasons and in many ways…nearly 30 million ways.  From the beginning, the agency embraced the underground multi-modal concept, and encouraged the Boise Centre expansion on site solution. We testified at design review in the early planning days, and have collaborated for endless weeks until, well, just last night approving one last agreement for the punch list work and the installation of a new Boise Center sign. CCDC is proud to be part of this high quality mixed use development; it will indeed be GREAT for downtown Boise.

The Gardner Company is the largest and most active partner in CCDC’s portfolio of redevelopment projects. In total, the Agency has partnered in over $574 million of construction projects – counting only CCDC’s 700 acres – over the past 3 years. The Gardner Company is not only setting the pace, they are causing other companies to invest in our districts. And we are extremely thankful for their leadership, energy, and courage to believe in the future of downtown Boise. The CCDC – VRT partnership for Main Street Station includes our contribution of  $2.4 million of local match funding towards the federal $10 million FTA grant. This should be a model approach for the federal transit administration integrating transit with mixed uses. Without these local match funds, the federal dollars would have been inaccessible to Boise. This is a great moment for transit and mobility in downtown – we would love to eventually make our own parking garages obsolete.

The CCDC – Gardner Company partnership included reimbursements and contributions valued at about $1.3 million, just a fraction of the millions of new property tax this high valued project will generate for local government services beyond the sunset of this district. And in the CCDC – Greater Boise Auditorium District partnership the Agency is the conduit financier, issuing $25 million in tax exempt bonds that built this amazing building you are looking at. To the board members of The District, and the employees of Boise Centre including Executive Director Pat Rice, we salute you. And we look forward to the annual renewal of the lease of this facility!

All total CCDC has assisted with nearly $30 million of public infrastructure, public facilities and public financing for the public side of this $70 million plus project.

Lastly, as you can see standing here, we are in the process of renovating The Grove Plaza, under budget and ahead of schedule. I need to announce that CCDC and the DBA will host The Holiday Tree lighting here in just 37 days. And in June — Alive After Five will return home when the final phases of Boise Centre and the plaza are complete. To all the new employers, restaurants, bus riders, transit companies, universities and businesses locating here, and to the thousands of visitors and convention attendees yet to come  — On behalf of CCDC, welcome back to The Grove Plaza!”