Enjoy Garden City’s wineries? You might like these apartments proposed near Boise River

A Boise firm plans to build a large residential and commercial complex along the Boise River in Garden City.

Called Cellar 45, the development would consist of two residential buildings between 44th and 45th streets with 360 apartments and between 10,000 and 12,000 square feet of retail space, said Bill Truax, the president and CEO of Galena Equity Partners, which bought the property in January.

It would consist of studios up to two-bedroom apartments, and would aim to stay under the luxury-market price point, Truax said by phone. The name is a reference to wineries, of which there are several in Garden City.

Traux said he hopes to host food and beverage businesses in the retail space, as well as water-related businesses. He has already been approached by a fly-fishing company.

He said the project is aimed at re-imagining the small city that is surrounded by Boise, and which hosts warehouses and mobile homes.

On Monday, the project proposal received approval from the city’s Design Review Committee, on condition that the plan incorporate some additional awnings along the street level of one of the building’s southern facades.

Jackson | Main Architecture, a Seattle firm, prepared the designs.

Truax said his company has been working with Garden City “to help lay the groundwork for what that area will become over the next decades.”

Eventually, the company would like to see a pedestrian footbridge connecting the area to Willow Lane Park, which is across the river in Boise.

A similar footbridge already exists east of the parcels, connecting the Greenbelt to Ester Simplot Park, north of Quinn’s Pond.

“I just think that connectivity over time along the Greenbelt is strengthened significantly by having that river crossing,” he said.

Truax said he eventually hopes to see the area around 44th and 45th streets become designated activity nodes by the city, which would promote mixed-use development.

Galena is also working on Parkway Station, a mixed-use neighborhood on 42nd and 43rd streets near the intersection with Adams Street. Truax said his company will likely build another “three or four” buildings in that area in the next five years.

Before that, his company built a low-income apartment complex, Trailwinds, on 42nd Street, which he has incorporated into Parkway Station.

Nearby, an 18-story luxury apartment building, which would be Idaho’s third-tallest building, is going up on 41st Street. Boise’s Vida Properties plans to have restaurants, commercial space, hot tubs, fire pits and an outdoor theater.

For more than a decade, growth has been underway along Garden City’s waterfront, close to where Boise’s Whitewater Park, new in 2012 and expanded in 2019, has brought kayakers, surfers and their fans to the river’s banks. In recent years, that growth has begun to expand further north along the river.

What sits on the 45th Street location now?

Galena Equity Partners bought five parcels for its two-building development. Those parcels comprise a long-standing meat company, the Gem Meat Packing Co., on 45th Street, and a mobile home, a small house and a vacant lot of 44th Street, Truax said.

Gem Meat Packing was founded in 1947, said its owner, Tyler Compton.

His family has been in the business for three generations. For years, people have approached Compton asking to buy the property, but he said offers didn’t get serious until around three years ago.

“This property down here is just getting too expensive for it to be a meat packing plant or a storage building or a trailer park,” he told the Statesman by phone. “Garden City will change into a city rather than an industrial park.”

While he’ll be sad to not come to Garden City each morning, he said his business needs a new building, which he plans to build in Middleton.

“This gives us, our family, an opportunity to build a new plant in a new location to do exactly what we do now and be able to take care of our customers better,” Compton said. “It’s a great opportunity.”

Compton said he has two years, starting this past January, to stay at the old location here while he builds his new plant.

Truax said he hopes to start construction on the 44th Street location in December, before moving onto 45th Street once the meat plant has moved out. Each building is expected to take about 18 months to build, he said.

“They’re going to make something neat for the community,” Compton said. “People will get a chance to live right down here along the river. I think that’s really cool.”

Noting that he thinks much of Garden City will be transformed into denser, urban-style living in the coming years, he worries that rising property values could push residents out.

“Everybody has to have somewhere to live,” he said.