Education
CWI Appraisal Tops Purchase Price
July 21, 2015 
College of Western Idaho has the results of the property appraisal for the old Bob Rice Ford property near 30th and Fairview and to the surprise of no one, the appraisal came back just above the purchase price.
Here is the press release from CWI.
Ada County Campus – Due Diligence on Boise Property Update
The College of Western Idaho has received the completed appraisal on the property at Main and Whitewater Park Boulevard in Boise, which the College has entered an agreement to purchase. The CWI Board of Trustees reviewed the appraisal that valued the property at $8.975 Million which supports the Purchase and Sale Agreement amount of $8.8 Million.
“The appraised value of the land reaffirms our confidence that this site is the best location for CWI to develop a campus to better serve the community college district based on its location, size, access, and cost” said CWI Board Chair Mary Niland. “We are still in the midst of our 180-day feasibility period, and cost is one of the factors we are assessing prior to a final decision. We respect and appreciate the interest of the community in our campus development plans, and value the conversations this process has inspired and that we continue to have. The Trustees and the College pledge to involve the community and keep you informed as we move forward through the feasibility period and with planning the future development of CWI’s Nampa, Boise, and online campuses to better meet the needs of our students and the community.”
In addition to the appraisal review, the Board of Trustees reviewed the Request for Qualifications results for a conceptual plan on the property. The Board provided approval for the College to enter into contract with CTA Architects for preliminary work for the proposed Ada County Campus in Boise to allow time to involve governing agencies and the public in the process. The College is in the process of conducting additional due diligence including environmental tests, land surveys, audits, and conversations with various city officials and agencies.
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Comments & Discussion
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Jul 21, 2015, 7:31 pm
“to the surprise of no one” indeed.
There are way too many folks making big fees and profits from this obscene sale.
CWI paid for the appraisal. The proposed purchase price and the salivating fervor of desire for this river front location was well known.
No problem at all here. It is just taxpayer money and we can go back and get more when we choose to. If it does not pass, we will just run it again and again in slightly different versions until it passes.
Jul 22, 2015, 5:05 am
MAI appraisal….Made as instructed.
Jul 22, 2015, 6:31 am
Is there not one other person who sees the folly? Forget the appraisal, everyone knows that’s an expensive lot and hard to appraise due to its uniqueness. Income method is the only possible method.
Anyway, why put a JC on prime river front property? BSU got river front before there was a Lucky Peak Dam and river front was the wrong side of the tracks because of flooding potential.
People are claiming spin off businesses will come. What spin offs? Anyone do a survey of spin offs by BSU? 90% or more will be commuters and there will be no benefit to the neighborhood besides filling in a vacant lot with something.
The 30th St Urban Renewal District will suffer the most with its most valuable property producing no income. It’s funny Dave, we’ve become strange bedfellows. That’s how politics works huh?
Jul 22, 2015, 9:03 am
Did everyone take a moment and realize appraisals happen after property is under contract…not before, which was suggested repeatedly by this publication. I find the “and to the surprise of no one” comment perplexing given the vehement assertion that the purchase price was higher than assessed value. It looks like rational thinking will take the win over knee-jerk muckraking in this instance. This is due in large part “to the surprise of no one”, actual professionals are involved.
Jul 22, 2015, 9:13 am
Not surprising as CWI has already hired an architect to design the building on property which in no way has even passed the due diligence phase. It is damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. We know what we want to do and just get out of the way.
Difficult to understand why they spent money for 23 acres in Nampa which just gives them another driveway and are willing to spend millions in Boise for a postage stamp area with flood plain and transportation problems.
Jul 22, 2015, 9:48 am
oohhhh that’s gotta make some butts hurt for some people.
Press-Tribune reports the original asking price was 10 million.
So, as I mentioned previously the story here is, “Why is the County Assessment so Messed Up?”
Bob Rice Partnership has been paying too little in property taxes for quite some time.
This is just one example of shortfalls in the assessor’s office and why “the rest of us” pay more. Let’s go back to a 2007 story for another: https://boiseguardian.com/2007/06/26/ag-exemption-is-dirty-secret/
Jul 22, 2015, 11:25 am
Regardless of the price of the property – is Boise State not in our “community”? I’ve never understood why a second college is needed right down the road from another – doubling infrastructure costs, administrative costs and teaching costs for taxpayers. And how is it that “tuition” at one, is so dramatically lower than at another? And why can BSU not serve the needs of our community/State at a reasonable cost, especially considering how awash they are in athletic revenue? Maybe someone in the educational arena could explain that to me.
Jul 22, 2015, 12:21 pm
How big of money grab will CWI be making on my property taxes now and in the future?
Has anyone done a cost benefit analysis of CWI vs. the typical low-middle homeowner taxpayer?
Exactly what will the new land be used for?
How much driving from campus to campus does a CWI student do?
What’s the status of the student loan bubble?
Jul 22, 2015, 1:28 pm
Reference the April 28th Guardian article, County Assessor Bob McQuade is required to have land value at market value and his office concluded the $3.5M value was “in the ball park”.
A current appraised value of 2-3 times the assessed value is not even close to the ball park. Is the county assessor inept or the appraiser for CWI?
How can anyone have any confidence in the assessor or an appraiser with such disparity? How are the tax payers who fund CWI assured this is a reasonable price and investment?
Jul 22, 2015, 5:24 pm
If we the people are paying for the river front property, we should consider putting in a park or wildlife habitat, and locating large structures away from flood prone areas. If it must be a large structure, how about a wonderful new library with river views. It looks a lot like the only ones seeing the view will be CWI muckety mucks.
Jul 22, 2015, 8:06 pm
If I understand correctly. The Assessor, Bob McQuade, assessed this property at $4,049,080 with taxes paid of $62,194.86. The property is really worth double the assessed value. Then the commercial property should have generated twice the taxes actually collected – for many years.
By extension, does that mean that the Assessor may have undervalued other commercial property, too, in the county causing the average person to pay more on their personal homes to make up for the spending of the various tax-supported agencies.
The county will see this $62,194 tax revenue go away with a tax exempt school and new tax increases needed to fuel CWI growth.
Jul 23, 2015, 5:28 am
You guys are beating a dead horse.
I’m pretty sure the assessor’s office uses the completed sales price by square foot method. It’s cheap and easy and the assessment was in the ball park using that method. The cost to build method is not applicable because it’s raw land.
The only other method of appraisal is called the income method which is more difficult and time consuming. Do you really want to pay the assessors office for the extra staff it would take to do an income method appraisal on all the county’s commercial properties?
Who’s going to do the cost benefit analysis?
Anyway, the issue now is to convince the Rice Family not to sell to CWI, convince CWI to find another lot or convince the city/state to intervene. It might take a state legislative action to ban tax exempt entities from buying in urban renewal districts. For Pete’s sake, they just banned the use of eminent domain to build trails like the greenbelt, even though trails like the greenbelt have almost certainly increased state tax revenues even though the state didn’t spend a dime to build the greenbelt.
Why doesn’t the MSM have the nerve to ask the Mayor and council how they feel about their latest urban renewal district losing about 25% of its future revenue?
What happens if a tax exempt entity buys the SE corner of 30th and Main and ditto that for the SE corner of 27th and Fairview?
Jul 23, 2015, 6:28 pm
What is important is that with it’s tremendous success CWI has come to the fork in the road.
Do they spend nearly $9 million on a piece of property that may have environmental, flood plan, transportation and the ever present design review committee in Boise or do they take that $9 million and invest it in their Nampa campus where that amount of money would go a long way for classroom and other space which they could start replacing immediately. These buildings are now scattered over 14 different locations with relatively high lease rates.
If they choose to build in Boise a long drawn out battle over bonding is a sure bet. $140 million has been mentioned. They should back out of the Boise purchase and return to the original plan for a Nampa campus–debt free—where there is plenty of space.
Jul 24, 2015, 9:26 am
It is worth pointing out that CWI has basically one building on their Nampa campus surrounded by 50-60 acres of vacant land. That campus is served by inter-county express bus routes and conveniently located near I-84. CWI students can ride all VRT fixed routes for free. There is zero need for CWI to buy new land at a premium in Boise, when their current campus is surrounded by vacant land. This is financially irresponsible and contrary to their mission to be low-cost education.