My Boise State Radio interview on “The Hole”

Got a call the other day from a new reporter over at Boise State Radio, Scott Ki. As a new Boise resident, he wondered why on Earth there is a large hole there at Eighth and Main. I told him the unvarnished truth: the site is cursed.

Hear the whole interview from Boise State Radio.

For Sale: Boise Hole

Lake Tahoe Home Builder Robert Capps who acquired the Boise Hole after the courts liquidated Gary Rogers’ holdings in the project, has listed the site at Eighth and Main for $3.95 million dollars.

To recap:

• CCDC purchased the property for about $560,000
• It sold the property for about $260,000
• The property is appraised at about $960,000
• Capps bought a note secured by the property, from Alpha Lending, for $2.4 million

If Capps gets the $3.95 mm for the property, he’ll have pulled off the greatest coup yet.

Boise Hole, meet the Fail Whale

This awesome image from my friends at Rizen Creative captures two of my favorite things - digital social networks, and the redevelopment of downtown Boise. The image also perfectly captures the life of the Boise Hole post, January 24, 1987.

Earlier in the week I went downtown to Boise State’s new urban classroom (818 W. Idaho - next to Chico’s) and lectured on the history of the hole. This followed the students being given the history of the Hole by CCDC Director Phil Kushlan.

The real (short) story goes something like this. The Eastman Building (erected 1905) was the last building to stand on the spot at Eighth and Main. It burned down after some homeless folks accidentally set fire to it. That was January 24, 1987.

Five years later, developer David Southers proposed a building on the site and got nowhere. Another five years later, Bellevue, WA based developer Rick Petersen bought the site from CCDC for $260,000 (and change). CCDC had acquired the property 10 years prior for more than twice that.

After borrowing money from a union pension fund to build the “Boise Tower” Petersen refused to hire union workers and guess what? Yep, the financing fell through. Whoda thunk?

Petersen finally lost the site after 10 years of doing nothing but sticking rebar in the ground (see photo). CCDC got the site back after paying Elam and Burke a lot of money. The site then got whisked away by a guy from Texas, Gary Rogers, posing as a friendly McCall retiree.

Even less happened under Rogers. Rogers went bankrupt and a BK judge gave the site to a homebuilder, Robert Capps, from Lake Tahoe.

Facts and figures:

• Site is worth about $960,000
• Capps bought the title to the site for $2.4 million
• Contradictory to what is being said out there, the rebar is not up to code and can’t be used. Cost to bring the hole to grade? About $600,000.

So. Is the Boise Hole “ready to go?” I don’t think so. Just no way to quite make this thing pencil out, especially if you understand some of the changes to the commercial lending market that have happened post “reset.”