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Idaho Statesman
A big change may be coming near Push & Pour and The Stil on the Boise Bench
By Nick Rosenberger,
7 hours ago
If you need an example of Boise’s changing landscape, take a look at the popular Wyld Child, The Stil and Push & Pour on Latah Street, just south of the Morris Hill Cemetery.
For decades, Like-Nu Car Wash filled the corner lot at 13 S. Latah St. with its signs for its “Mega Time! All the Time!” 25-cent washes emblazoned in bold letters. A small wooden stand selling Italian ice moved into the spot in 2018, with tables shaded by the vintage “Car Care Center” canopy with red-checkered supports.
But the modern re-imagining of the site really began in 2020 when Wyld Child, The Stil and Push & Pour started working to redevelop the old car-wash structure into the bustling Bench food-and-drink entertainment complex known today.
The neighborhood could undergo an even bigger change with new plans from Boise’s Erstad Architects to transform a cracked parking lot and an aging office building directly across the street into a four-story, 41-unit apartment building at 10 S. Latah St.
The project is headed by James Marria and Ryan Erstad, an architect and son of Andy Erstad, a founding partner of their namesake architecture firm. Ryan Erstad also serves on the board of commissioners for the city’s Design Review Commission and Capital City Development Corp., the city’s urban renewal agency.
Marria is a development manager at the Seattle-based Touchstone LLC , a developer that mostly specializes in office buildings and hotels . According to Erstad, he and Marria grew up together in Boise, parted ways in junior high and separately pursued careers in real estate design, development and construction. The Latah apartments are the first project proposed by their new Boise company , EMWerks.
“With the adaptive reuse project across the street, we’ve seen how much excitement there is in this area for neighborhood-scale restaurants and retailers,” Ryan Erstad said in an email to the Idaho Statesman. “We believe that, even with the shifting market, there is a strong demand for housing options that are convenient to downtown but with the community identity of an established neighborhood.”
The apartments would be about a mile from South Junior High School, Boise State University, the Train Depot and Ann Morrison Park, which links into the Boise River Greenbelt.
The building would include nearly 2,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor and three floors of apartments, according to a letter submitted to City Hall by Courtney Matranga, a member of Erstad’s architecture team. Matranga said they intend the retail space to be used by a restaurant or cafe.
The building would also bring a private, nearly 2,400-square foot amenity deck on the top floor’s northeast corner overlooking Alpine Street, according to preliminary site plans. There could also be private patios on the southwest corner looking toward Wyld Child, which serves burgers and fried chicken sandwiches. Residents would have easy access to Push & Pour’s coffee and The Stil’s ice cream.
“This project brings density and activity to a major thoroughfare on the Boise Bench,” Matranga wrote. “Residents of this project will have access to public transit at the northwest corner of the site, and the retail space will extend the activity already existing across Latah to further the neighborhood’s growing activity zone.”
Erstad said he did not have a good estimate for what rent would be, or if any units would be reserved for affordable housing.
Nearby apartments could offer clues. The Parkview Apartments next to Ann Morrison Park was asking about $2,400 per month on Thursday for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit, according to Zillow . The Vista Apartments, just north of the Boise Train Depot, cost about $800 to nearly $1,500 per month per person, according to its website .
The median rent for the 83705 zip code, which the Latah apartments would be within, was $1,450 per month as of Thursday, according to Zillow data .
The building is the kind of infill project the city’s new zoning code encourages, Erstad said.
“There’s a bus stop on the corner, we’re a five-minute bike ride to downtown, a block either direction from a park and a school, and just across the street from some of the coolest food and beverage joints in the city,” Erstad said. “We see our project as part of a growing urban village at one of the most interesting corners in Boise.”
A long process for more homes in the Boise Bench
The plans for the apartment building are still in the early stages of the development process and are likely to change if they move forward. The application was a request for an early assistance review, which means EMWerks wants to meet with the city’s planning team to receive feedback before proceeding.
The next public step would likely be a meeting with neighbors. Real estate development such as the Latah apartments can take years to come to reality, often after several rounds of approval from the city — such as from the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission, Design Review Commission and City Council. Projects like this also often require a traffic impact study from the Ada County Highway District and subsequent approval.
Add in that developers are also dealing with difficult market conditions — including high interest rates, a construction labor shortage and expensive materials — and it can make it even more difficult to get buildings off the ground.
EMWerks started its first feasibility studies last summer and closed on the property in May, Erstad said. But it could take a while until the building goes up.
“We are in the early stages of design, so it will be a few years before any new apartments are available here,” Erstad said.
If it’s any indication, a unit in the office building recently went up for lease in July with Boise’s TOK Commercial through June 2025. The building is fading from its glory days, with water-damaged carpeting, a rusting staircase and chipped white and blue paint.
Juggling ownership for aging Boise offices
Four businesses have owned the building since 2020, with Frontier Properties having owned it for nearly 15 years before selling it in 2021, according to property records from the Ada County Assessor’s Office and business filings from the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office .
Frontier Properties was founded by John Farren, who also founded Boise’s Farren Engineering that has worked on projects including the Caldwell Police Station and Sun Valley Elkhorn Golf Clubhouse, according to the company’s website.
Farren was also the owner of the Boise Bomb Shelter across from Highland Elementary School at 600 W. Curling Drive for a time.
Frontier sold it to a company named 10 South Latah with a post-office box in Calabasas, California. An Idaho business named 5 Bridges took ownership of the building in 2023 before EMWerks bought the property in May.
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