BY SANDRA FORESTER
sforester@idahostatesman.com
© 2012 Idaho Statesman
Aidan Hill moved into her first apartment Wednesday, a sunny, small one-bedroom in a new six-unit complex at 517 N. 13th St.
“It’s difficult to find something that’s clean, in the right location, for the right price,” she said.
Hill, 22, said she’ll bike to her job as a customer-service representative at a Downtown bank from the apartment she’ll share with her bassett hound, Bianca. The 630-square-foot apartments rents for $650 a month. Hill makes $32,000 a year.
Developer Neal Newhouse, a retired attorney and longtime Boise resident, said he received the certificate of occupancy for the complex on Dec. 28. Ten days later, all but one apartment was let.
So-called workforce housing is in short supply in Boise. The problem is not new: A 2007 study — the latest available — by Boise’s urban renewal agency, the Capital City Development Corp., found there were few apartments for workers who make too much to qualify for low-income housing but not enough to buy homes.
Five years later, things haven’t changed much. Next door, the 100-year-old White-Savage Apartments with 12 units, owned by Newhouse since 1978, rarely has a vacancy. The units rent for $480 to $700.
A 2011 fourth-quarter survey by the Southwest Idaho National Association of Residential Property Managers found no vacancies across the Treasure Valley for studio apartments, whose rents averaged $363. For one-bedroom units, averaging $442 a month, the vacancy rate was a negligible 1.8 percent.
Across the Valley new apartments are starting to spring up as demand rises, partly because of people forced out of homes they couldn’t afford. Others are renting because of insecure or mobile jobs or the decline in home values since 2007.
Newhouse caters mostly to singles, most of whom are young and living on modest incomes, who want to live Downtown.
“People who I rent to don’t have many choices,” Newhouse said. “I think there’s a lot of demand.”
Not far from his apartments, Northwest Real Estate Capital Corp. plans to convert the top floors of the old Macy’s department store to 62 one-bedroom apartments for roughly the same demographic Newhouse serves. Northwest, which owns properties in Idaho, Alaska and Oregon, bought the Macy’s building last month, according to Thornton Oliver Keller, a commercial real estate brokerage.
Northwest’s apartments would range from 518 to 1,000 square feet, with rents of about $540 to $1,040 a month, based on the $1.04 per-square-foot estimate provided by the developer — similar to Hill’s rent. Tenants with cars would have to find space in a nearby lot or garage. But many would likely walk or bike to work.
Newhouse invested more than $355,000 to build his new complex on a 60-by-100-square-foot lot near the tennis courts of Boise High School. It’s just a few blocks from the Capitol, the Linen District, the North End Albertsons and Hyde Park.
“It’s never empty, and I never have to advertise,” he said.
He said most of his renters bike or walk, too. He’s installed bike racks for each apartment.
A small complex like his two buildings lets renters get to know each other better than in big apartment complexes, and they tend to look out for one another.
“I’m really thrilled,” said Hill, the newest renter.
Sandra Forester: 377-6464
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