Multistory apartment building could come to this busy Boise Bench area. Are you ready?

For Boise apartment hunters who want views, there may be a new spot in town in the coming years.

Boise real estate developer Hawkins Cos. is looking to build a four-story, roughly 200-apartment building at 1095 S. Federal Way near Terry Day Park, less than a mile south of Boise State University.

The building would redevelop a mostly vacant parcel at the top of the Protest Road hill, on the edge of the Boise Bench. It would fill the west side of the intersection along Federal Way, where Protest Road turns into Kootenai Street.

“(The view is) one of the reasons why this site is so cool,” said Ethan Mansfield, a project manager at Hawkins, by phone.

The four-story building would be one of a few multistory apartment buildings on the edge of the Boise Bench, but Mansfield said it wouldn’t be out of place. There is a five-story office building less than half a mile away.

The proposal expands a one-building apartment planned in the southern part of the site that the Boise Planning and Zoning Commission already approved in July 2023, according to a letter from Mansfield. The new request would add more apartments to the northern part, across an access road, and connect them over the road on one side.

For that building, Hawkins Cos. sought to build 120 units ranging from studios to three-bedroom units and a roughly 2,000-square-foot commercial space for use by a coffee shop, bakery, cafe, retail shop or something similar, according to the original letter of intent submitted in March 2023.

“The project will not lease by the room, and the units themselves are designed to be rented by young professionals, families and empty-nesters,” according to the letter. “In other words, the student population is not the target market for these units.”

“This will not be student housing,” Mansfield told the Idaho Statesman. “(But) will students be able to rent them? Absolutely… It’s open to anyone who’s looking for a place to live in Boise.”

The new application would develop the northern portion of the site and bump the total number of units up to 200. Plans call for 19 studio units; 98 one-bedroom, one-bath units; 68 two-bedroom, two-bath units; and 15 three-bedroom, two-bathroom units.

Designs for the triangular site call for over 300 parking spaces divided between an underground level and the ground floor. The ground floor would include nine apartments and a community space, an amenity space or leasing office on the northern corner, lobby or amenity space in the southwestern corner and commercial space on the eastern corner.

Amenities could include a fitness room, lounge, indoor bike storage and a courtyard on the second floor with patio seating, Mansfield said.

The entrances to the first-floor units would create a “townhome-style feel,” according to Mansfield’s letter.

The proposed apartments are still early in the development process, and Hawkins still has a way to go to nail down specific details, Mansfield said, but the company is planning to host a neighborhood meeting on May 21.

Mansfield said rents for the units would be market-rate. The median rent in Boise in May was $1,250, which is about 4.5% lower than the same time last year, according to ApartmentList. The median cost for a one-bedroom rental in Boise was $1,080, while a two-bedroom was $1,245.

Available units at the Encore Skyline apartments, about a mile south of the proposed building, run from about $1,595 per month for a one-bedroom, one-bath unit to $2,447 per month for a three-bedroom, one-bath unit, according to its website.

The Betty apartments, also about a mile south, cost $1,250 to $2,200 per month for one- to three-bedroom apartments, according to the apartments’ website.

Encore Skyline and the Betty market themselves as “luxury” apartments.

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