Garden City, Idaho
Parkway Neighborhood
Garden City, Idaho—overlooking the Boise River and adjacent to the capital city—has enjoyed particularly favorable market forces over the past several years. The strong real estate market, along with factors such as increased remote work options, efforts to create new and improved parks, the popularity of Boise River Greenbelt, and rapid growth in the Treasure Valley region, bring with it the opportunity to reinvent the Parkway neighborhood. Garden City is essentially built out, but is in the process of infill development east of Glenwood. The City is becoming increasingly popular, and the east end is of the highest valued property in the valley. The City is open to transforming the land use map again to achieve an ideal flexible zoning pattern. The Greenbelt is enviable cultural and natural resource and a significant economic engine for Garden City, with a wide range of users and activities from dawn to dusk. Idaho has a long history of private sector responsibility for the growth and direction of not only the state, but the cities and towns. As with a successful company, opportunities for profit, leverage, speed to market, and predictability are key to a flourishing Garden City. The time to take advantage of Garden City’s unique opportunity is now. Economic conditions can change quickly. Right now, many factors are aligned to help Garden City achieve a transformation that will improve the life of its residents for many years to come. It is important to be proactive in order to manage change and benefit from it.
RECOMMENDATIONS The panel’s recommendations offered a vision and a roadmap to seize the moment. To shape the future of Garden City, the panel recommended:
• Empower people to be entrepreneurial and build great partnerships. Establish a strategic vision for a community that reflect the changing nature of Garden City’s housing market, employment market, and the opportunities these changes provide to transform local land uses.
• Create a positive image for Garden City and the study area with specific placemaking and branding efforts.
• Invest for growth and maximize the city’s revenues by growing the taxable real estate base as quickly as possible. Leverage financial resources available to the city to maximize investments. Expand relationships with partners and stakeholders, especially to pursue sources of additional potential financing.
• Engage specific areas of expertise from consultants, add staff to the planning department, and partners with neighboring jurisdictions.
• Encourage a mix of housing types, especially townhomes and stacked units that can be achieved through redevelopment and infill. Support housing affordability for a range of income levels. Improve or preserve mobile homes in the community in order to maintain a supply of housing for lower-income families. Create a Housing Commission, as envisioned in the Garden City Comprehensive Plan.
• Support a mix of uses, including hyperlocal retail such as local artisans and artists; neighborhood proprietors and boutiques, trendy coffee shops and restaurants, wineries, and breweries. Explore the potential to redevelop industrial sites for businesses that can use a large open warehouse space, as space for a business incubator, or as “maker space” for local artisans and fabricators.
• Improve walkability, especially for pedestrian safety. Identify activity focus areas on Osage and potential activation nodes along the Greenbelt. See opportunities to create pedestrian walkways through long blocks.
• Connect resources: in partnership with the City of Boise, build a bridge from Garden City to the Willow Lane Athletic Complex. Treat the Greenbelt like a regional park rather than just a trail, and establish better connectivity among parcels and to the waterfront.
• Improve flood control measures. Establish a holistic ecological approach for district-wide stormwater treatment and floodplain mitigation to help improve resiliency.
• Implement an east-west protected facility on Adams Street, in coordination with the planned sewer project. Partner with with Ada County Highway District, Valley Regional Transit, Compass MPO.
• Adopt a multi-family parking ratio of 1:1 per unit. Investigate shared parking and public parking feasibility studies.
The panel was led by chair Christopher Kurz, Linden Associates, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland; and included panelists Erwin Andres, Gorove Slade, Washington, DC; Agnès Artemel, Artemel & Associates Inc., Alexandria, Virginia; Alexandra Elias, Renew Moline, Moline, Illinois; Tom Murphy, ULI – the Urban Land Institute, Washington, DC; Emily Rogers, MRWM Landscape Architects, Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Geeti Silwal, Perkins&Will, San Francisco, California. ULI staff Thomas Eitler and Barbra Gustis supported the panel. Deborah Myerson, Myerson Consulting, served as the panel program manager for ULI.
Video Summary: Garden City, Idaho—overlooking the Boise River and adjacent to the capital city—has enjoyed particularly favorable market forces over the past several years. The strong real estate market, along with factors such as increased remote work options, efforts to create new and improved parks, the popularity of Boise River Greenbelt, and rapid growth in the Treasure Valley region, bring with it the opportunity to reinvent the Parkway neighborhood. Garden City is essentially built out, but is in the process of infill development east of Glenwood. The City is becoming increasingly popular, and the east end is of the highest valued property in the valley. The City is open to transforming the land use map again to achieve an ideal flexible zoning pattern. The Greenbelt is enviable cultural and natural resource and a significant economic engine for Garden City, with a wide range of users and activities from dawn to dusk. Idaho has a long history of private sector responsibility for the growth and direction of not only the state, but the cities and towns. As with a successful company, opportunities for profit, leverage, speed to market, and predictability are key to a flourishing Garden City. The time to take advantage of Garden City’s unique opportunity is now. Economic conditions can change quickly. Right now, many factors are aligned to help Garden City achieve a transformation that will improve the life of its residents for many years to come. It is important to be proactive in order to manage change and benefit from it.
RECOMMENDATIONS The panel’s recommendations offered a vision and a roadmap to seize the moment. To shape the future of Garden City, the panel recommended:
• Empower people to be entrepreneurial and build great partnerships. Establish a strategic vision for a community that reflect the changing nature of Garden City’s housing market, employment market, and the opportunities these changes provide to transform local land uses.
• Create a positive image for Garden City and the study area with specific placemaking and branding efforts.
• Invest for growth and maximize the city’s revenues by growing the taxable real estate base as quickly as possible. Leverage financial resources available to the city to maximize investments. Expand relationships with partners and stakeholders, especially to pursue sources of additional potential financing.
• Engage specific areas of expertise from consultants, add staff to the planning department, and partners with neighboring jurisdictions.
• Encourage a mix of housing types, especially townhomes and stacked units that can be achieved through redevelopment and infill. Support housing affordability for a range of income levels. Improve or preserve mobile homes in the community in order to maintain a supply of housing for lower-income families. Create a Housing Commission, as envisioned in the Garden City Comprehensive Plan.
• Support a mix of uses, including hyperlocal retail such as local artisans and artists; neighborhood proprietors and boutiques, trendy coffee shops and restaurants, wineries, and breweries. Explore the potential to redevelop industrial sites for businesses that can use a large open warehouse space, as space for a business incubator, or as “maker space” for local artisans and fabricators.
• Improve walkability, especially for pedestrian safety. Identify activity focus areas on Osage and potential activation nodes along the Greenbelt. See opportunities to create pedestrian walkways through long blocks.
• Connect resources: in partnership with the City of Boise, build a bridge from Garden City to the Willow Lane Athletic Complex. Treat the Greenbelt like a regional park rather than just a trail, and establish better connectivity among parcels and to the waterfront.
• Improve flood control measures. Establish a holistic ecological approach for district-wide stormwater treatment and floodplain mitigation to help improve resiliency.
• Implement an east-west protected facility on Adams Street, in coordination with the planned sewer project. Partner with with Ada County Highway District, Valley Regional Transit, Compass MPO.
• Adopt a multi-family parking ratio of 1:1 per unit. Investigate shared parking and public parking feasibility studies.
The panel was led by chair Christopher Kurz, Linden Associates, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland; and included panelists Erwin Andres, Gorove Slade, Washington, DC; Agnès Artemel, Artemel & Associates Inc., Alexandria, Virginia; Alexandra Elias, Renew Moline, Moline, Illinois; Tom Murphy, ULI – the Urban Land Institute, Washington, DC; Emily Rogers, MRWM Landscape Architects, Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Geeti Silwal, Perkins&Will, San Francisco, California. ULI staff Thomas Eitler and Barbra Gustis supported the panel. Deborah Myerson, Myerson Consulting, served as the panel program manager for ULI.