Boise banned new car dealers at auto mall. Now it will consider a change

Boise banned new car dealers at auto mall. Now it will consider a change

Should Boise’s Auto Mall be a place to sell cars — or a place for apartments and shops?

When Boise adopted its zoning code rewrite late last year, it reshaped the way the city could develop in hundreds of ways large and small, as BoiseDev reported extensively.

Some of the changes flew under the radar – including rezoning the auto mall property at Cole and Franklin to no longer allow new car dealership buildings to be built.

What should be allowed?

The Boise Auto Mall started out as the Boise Motor Village in the 1960s.  It stands on property that was long a farm – including brief ownership by the Zamzow family, owners of the local chain of pet and garden stores. The property is bounded on the south side by the Farmers Lateral canal and second Boise bench, with the I-184 freeway on the other.  It is home to two Larry H. Miller auto dealerships, a collection of Lyle Pearson car dealers, a CapEd Credit Union branch and the Calvary Chapel campus.

The zoning code changes redid the zoning from a general commercial set of rules to the city’s MX-3 designation.  As BoiseDev reported earlier this year, MX-3 doesn’t allow for any new car dealership buildings – but allows grandfathered dealerships to remain.

The owner of the Lyle Pearson, Spokane-based Gee Automotive, hopes to convince the City of Boise to undo this change.

The company purchased the former Intermountain Design office furniture building at 7840 W. Gratz Dr. earlier this year.  Intermountain moved to a new location on Fairview Ave.

In an application letter asking for a rezone, a Portland architecture firm claims Lyle Pearson’s owners didn’t know about the zoning code changes.

“The property sale was initiated prior to the zone change and the sale was finalized after the zone change went into effect,” the letter from Axis Design Group asserts. “The new property owner was not aware of the impending zone change during the due diligence process for the property purchase.”

Axis said that’s a problem for their clients.

“The new MX-3 zone does not allow two of three intended uses of the property: vehicle sales and vehicle service, major. Vehicle service, minor, is the only automotive use now allowed outright on this property.”

The city said MX-3 zoning is designed to “provide opportunities for office, commercial, institutional, and residential uses to support active modes of transportation,” Axis notes.  The firm said that’s a tough go for this property, due to its location up against the I-184 offramp to the north, and west and hillside and canal to the south.

”This site is not suited for connectivity to transit and pathway-oriented development given its adjacencies and location at the end of a dead-end cul-de-sac street,” Axis wrote. “The intended commercial uses cannot be readily connected to active modes of transportation given the surrounding conditions of this site.”

Planners signal agreement

City planners appear to agree.

In a concept review memo, city planners noted that the properties are zoned MX-3 “due to proximity to the regional activity center,” which refers to Boise Towne Square.  For a pedestrian to get from the shopping mall to the auto mall, however, they have to navigate freeway ramps, an eight-lane road and a set of railroad tracks. 

“The planning team can support the majority of the rezone to MX-2 with the exception of four parcels closest to the intersection of Cole and Franklin,” city planners wrote in the memo.

That would mean the bulk of the auto dealerships could have their zoning changed, but the site of a former Plush Pippin restaurant and two other lots used by Calvary Chapel, as well as the CapEd building could stay in the MX-3 designation.

The proposal would ultimately wind up in front of the Boise City Council to approve — or deny.

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