“……..but creating a Phoneix from the ashes has been difficult.”

The Banner Bank building just won the Phoenix award for 2009. Irony anyone?

http://idahobusiness.net/archive.htm/2009/12/03/Banner-Bank-Building-wins-national-award

EDITOR NOTE–Go green! It still wasn’t easy.

Thankfully there have been a few people over the years willing to stand up to the Cleptocrats of the CCDC and City Hall, or Downtown would be completely sterile by now.

As it stands, Downtown Boise will soon be nothing more than bars, pretentious restaurants and a few ticky tacky condos.

This is not restricted to Boise. The Missoula store is another downtown Macy’s going down. And Missoula, that I know of, does not have another Macy’s in the area.

http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_e2eb258c-fa1d-11de-8935-001cc4c002e0.html

So it’s not just Boise, and it’s not just a failure of Boise government that have led to this. Shopping patterns are changing. Anyone shop online lately? That affects store performance, too, right?

Tell that to the folks here or those commenting on the Statesman site, though, who are eager to criticize the current leaders for something that is 20-30 years or so in the making (attaboy, Cyclops). Near-sighted, indeed.

Did you do any research at all for this post? Sure doesn’t seem like it. HUD has nothing to do with tax increment financing (TIF). In fact, if you’d done your homework, you’d know that HUD has few (if any) programs to help downtowns redevelop. TIF is enabled by state legislation.
Furthermore, HUD didn’t build neighborhoods in Boise, they guaranteed loans on homes that purchasers chose in existing or planned areas. Farmers Home is a different agency completely (it’s under the Department of Agriculture, as a matter of fact), and doesn’t build homes, either. They enable loans. The loans were intended to economically develop rural areas, which is why they came with population restrictions.

Government policies did indeed enable sprawl, but not in the way you describe, and these policies certainly didn’t contribute to the recent demise of Macy’s.

EDITOR NOTE–URBAN RENEWAL was several decades ahead of TIF. TIF was created by the state at the behest of cities to take away property taxes from local jurisdictions without their permission when the Federal funds dried up. You are correct about most of your assertions and a careful read and comprehension will show the homework assignment was completed. The issue is all of the politico’s decisions in aggregate–often creating contrary results–put us where we are today.
I would assert TOO MUCH planning rather than no planning is the problem.

I hate downtown. Pay to park, over priced everything, one-way streets, congestion, crosswalks, pedestrians, bums, and j-walkers. Parking nazi’s in the day and too many cops hoping you’re drunk at night. City leadership with some Norman Rockwell vision… always with their hand out… “Please help us with our poor little downtown.” What a joke. Like the editor said… it’s just a trap for federal handouts.

I think Macy’s decided to concentrate retail operations. I did a bunch of contracting work for the Bon and learned from the manager there who was pleading with upper management for keeping his store open. He told me that the downtown store made more money /square foot than the Boise Mall store. By closing the store, it forces downtown Macys shoppers out to the mall thus building revenue in that operation and the Nampa store for the sprawl folks.

Perhaps the Boise Chamber of Commerce should start the “Lets go Shopping at Nordstroms” bus again!

I see a Big Lots moving in to the vacant Macys. Boise loves a Big Lot.

Yet the CCDC states that “business’ come and go” To top it off, the joke we have as a mayor stated “twice as many business’ opened as closed last year” (I wonder how long it took Jade and Mike to come up with that one?) And our mayor is right! The downtowned enjoyed something like 25,000 sq.ft. of new retail. Unfortunately, when you throw Macy’s into the mix, the downtown core has lost something like 170,000 sq. ft. Not a very good trade is it? Just how many “For Lease” signs in downtown do we need before someone realizes these “jamokes” couldn’t run their pantyhose! CCDC needs to be ABOLISHED!!!

I am so sorry to see downtown die. What I can add, however, is that like people businesses get old and die, and neighborhoods get old and die. Unlike people neighborhoods can be recreated and flourish again. It’s hard to know how long that might take. With regard to downtown Boise, it probably won’t be in my lifetime. How long has the 8th street hole in the ground been unfinished? Guess the people who worked on that transaction didn’t exactly know what they were doing. CCDC has been the worst thing for Boise for many years.

The whole Fairview/Main corridor just west of downtown is a vast wasteland of unused property, some owned by the city of Boise and untaxed, and bypassed by the connector which enables people to get out of downtown as fast as possible. Businesses which were located on the Fairview/Main corridor have died from loneliness and lack of business. What poor planning or lack of planning.

Some of you have it wrong. Downtown is not dying nor is it dead. I work downtown, live in the East end and there are still better shops and restaurants downtown than anywhere else in the city. The current trend downtown of having some vacant storefronts is what every other city in the nation is experiencing, it is not exclusive to Boise. There are more clothing stores for men scattered around downtown then there are at the mall. Some of the best shopping for female clothing according to my girlfriend is downtown and not at the mall. The most creative restaurants in the valley are downtown.

I rarely need to travel to West Boise to shop because everything I need is at stores downtown or along the major streets near downtown.

Back to Macy’s. I think the reason it is closing is Macy’s fault for never upgrading the building they are in, they never invested in it and frankly there are a lot more reasons to shop downtown than Macy’s.

I am sure we who shopped at the Bon for many years will miss that nice “swamp cooler” smell in the summer.

The demise of the Bon/Macy Downtown is at least as much their own fault as it is the fault of the city. And, in retrospect, they probably made the right move each step of the way. My memory of events is that back in about 1980, the then new Karcher Mall was THE place to shop. They were driving Boise Merchants nuts. I remember envoys to Saint Nordstroms and all sorts of shenanigans to thwart those pesky Canyon County retailers.

The threat might have gone away on its own if they had just waited, but waiting has its own risks. The response to Karcher was the Towne Square Mall, with Macys on board, and it continues to be successful.

The problem is, this area is not big/rich enough to support 3 or more stores of the Bon/Macy caliber. Five or ten Walmarts, sure. Macy’s no. In many respects, it is a surprise the downtown store lasted as long as it did.

The downtown building is still a good location, but for something, someone, else.

I remember well that there was great debate as to building the mall downtown in the dustbowl (as it was called) or out west of town. When Sears and Penneys decided that they would only have new stores in the mall if it were built out west of town, that ended the debate. I cut up my Sears and Penneys charge cards and mailed them to the presidents of Sears and Penney. It didn’t stop the mall from being built where it is. Parts of downtown Boise are still a dustbowl.

ahhh yes, I remember the buildings torn down during the Urban Development of the 70’s. Almost lost what is now called The Egyptian Theater.
And much of what was torn down for great plans are still parking lots.
And then there is the infamous Hole on the corner of Main and 8th….
Perhaps we will have more until people think that we were bombed.