[Vision2020] Sangria Favored for Sixth & Jackson?

[Kenneth Marcy]

On 2/25/2015 1:42 PM, Saundra Lund wrote:
> I'm very intrigued by the whole micro-apartment aspect -- does anyone know
> what kind of micro-apartments these will be?  I know a little bit about
> micro-apartments in other (urban & European) areas, so I'm curious who the
> target renters will be?

I am not at all intrigued by any micro-apartment development in Moscow 
simply because the urban density here does not call for any such extreme 
level for people packing.  Sixth and Jackson, by any reasonable 
forward-looking planning horizon, should be within the University of 
Idaho's main campus area of impact.  What probably should be happening 
there is that the University should be developing high-rise apartments 
from that location south and west toward the campus.  A modest variety 
of unit configurations could accommodate several hundred students and 
their families -- not micro-housing or dormitories -- and thus provide a 
reasonable expectation that affordable, convenient housing will be 
available for the students the University wants to matriculate.

The University's half-century experiment in high-rise accommodations 
known as Theophilus Tower would then better appear to be a good prospect 
to be converted in to offices for faculty, adjuncts, and graduate 
students in the venerable tradition of Chrisman Hall, which now contains 
English and Mathematics faculty.

With all due respect to the entrepreneurial enthusiasms entertained by 
the current applicants, this is simply not an appropriate use for this 
location now, or in its reasonably expected future, given the major 
investment this community already has in its main economic engine.  
Combined with the already economically understandable, but nevertheless 
obnoxious, local rental pricing strategies that assume short-term 
student renters, and thus price by the bedroom, having a greater 
quantity of University-connected housing would allow the remaining local 
housing stock to better-serve other family-oriented occupancies -- and 
perhaps at rental rates that are not some multiple of a mortgage payment.

If the University expects to grow, then it should be preparing for that 
growth, and intelligently planned and conveniently located housing is 
certainly a major part of that planning.  The University and the 
community both should recognize that "micro-scale retail" in that 
location is a sub-standard use of that property location, and both 
parties should be more actively planning for the better, long-term use 
that is expected.


Ken