Idaho

Renovations to ITD’s Boise HQ will cost at least $64M – not $32M, new report shows • Idaho Capital Sun

Published

1 year ago

December 20, 2024

Renovations to ITD’s Boise HQ will cost at least M – not M, new report shows • Idaho Capital Sun

A new report on the Idaho Transportation Department’s former State Street headquarters in Boise estimates it would cost at least twice the amount of money the Idaho Legislature provided earlier this year to renovate the flood-damaged property.

It’s not clear what happens next to the empty and contaminated property. But one thing is sure – the state did not set aside nearly enough money to get the building back in safe, usable condition for state employees.

The issue involves the Idaho Transportation Department former Boise headquarters located at 3311 W. State St. On Jan. 2, 2022, the building flooded, was contaminated with asbestos and all ITD employees working at the building were displaced, according to court and ITD records.

Mold was also detected at the property, ITD officials said.

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The building, which was completed in 1961, has sat vacant since 2022. Other buildings on the 44-acre campus have been in use since the flood, state officials told the Idaho Capital Sun.

The Idaho Transportation Department board declared the State Street property “surplus property” the summer after the flood, which paved the way for the entire 44-acre campus the headquarters sits on to be sold.

Extensive damage is visible during a Dec. 19, 2024, visit to the Idaho Transportation Department’s former Boise headquarters. (Clark Corbin/Idaho Capital Sun)

But in March, the Idaho Legislature suddenly blocked the $51.7 million sale of the State Street campus to a group of developers that included Hawkins Companies, FJ Management and Pacific West Communities.

Legislators argued it would be a better deal for the taxpayers to block the sale, hold on to the State Street campus, renovate it and use it for state employees again. Legislators agreed to provide $32.5 million to renovate the building, based on a rudimentary, sight-unseen estimate provided by the Idaho Division of Public Works. The estimate from the Idaho Division of Public Works was not a full estimate and did not take into account the amount of flood damage or HVAC repairs, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.

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ITD releases ‘Property Condition Assessment’ report on Boise headquarters

Then on Thursday, the Idaho Transportation Department released a new 207-page “Property Condition Assessment” report. The new report lists repair estimates ranging from $64 million to $69.4 million.

The $64 million “level 1” estimate provides the estimated cost to allow state employees to move back into a safe, secure and comfortable building that meets the same standards as a typical state office building.

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The $69.4 million “level 2” estimate includes all level 1 upgrades, plus a new fire suppression sprinkler system and recommendations for an open floor plan design to allow longterm occupancy and adaptability, according to the report.

Architects and consultants with CSHQA completed the property condition assessment report that includes the $64 million and $69.4 million estimates. Notably, the assessment is not a formal repair bid, so actual renovation and repair costs could vary from the assessment.

Rep. Wendy Horman, the Idaho Falls Republican who serves as co-chair of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, said legislators took action based on the $32.5 million estimate provided by the Idaho Division of Public Works.

“We used the numbers that were provided to us,” Horman said in a phone interview Thursday. “So it is interesting to see such a large discrepancy between what was provided to us and acted on in good faith during the legislative session and these new numbers.”

Horman said she does not know what comes next for the ITD State Street campus. She said it will be a discussion point during the upcoming 2025 legislative session, and she expects to get to the bottom of the discrepancy between the estimates.

“It is interesting to see that nine months later we are given one (cost estimate) that is essentially double,” Horman added.

When asked what will happen next, Idaho Transportation Department officials provided the Sun with a written statement saying they will take the latest estimates to the Idaho Transportation Department board in January. ITD officials also said they will seek a building design.

“Based on current legislative direction, ITD will continue to work with (Idaho Division of Public Works) to advance the project,” the statement read. “In the current assessment, CSHQA has identified extensive repairs due to the age of the building, the flood damage and the subsequent deferred maintenance since the 2022 vacancy. A building design will provide the necessary detail to execute the rehabilitation work and provide a more accurate cost estimate. This estimate would inform ITD’s appropriation request, as needed, in future fiscal years.”

Inside of former Idaho Transportation Department Boise headquarters looks like disaster site

ITD officials allowed the Idaho Capital Sun and other local journalists to tour the inside of the flood damaged property on Thursday.

Even three years after the flood, a damp, musty smell permeates the building.

Numerous walls, ceilings, carpets and floors show visible water damage stains.

Crews drilled dozens of holes in many of the building’s interior walls to help water escape and walls dry after water flooded down the walls and elevator shafts, ITD officials said.

Idaho Transportation Department campus flood damage — Crews drilled dozens of holes in interior walls to help water escape and walls dry at the Idaho Transportation Department’s former Boise headquarters. (Clark Corbin/Idaho Capital Sun)

Exposed electrical wiring, tangles of twisted metal and pieces of broken wood are scattered across some of the hallways.

Chairs and desks are stacked haphazardly, and in some cases toppled in piles.
Emergency exit signs have been ripped from ceilings and dangle from loose wires.

Elevator doors are propped open.

The heat and lights only work in some parts of the building.

Despite the contaminated mess, stained ITD coffee cups still sit on some of the desks, project notes are still scribbled in red marker on whiteboards and even a few Christmas decorations from 2021 are still affixed to office doors and windows.

In short, it looks like a disaster scene.

When the would-be buyers including Hawkins Companies made the high bid for the State Street campus, they planned to demolish and build new, not renovate the flood-damaged building.

Idaho Transportation Department headquarters in Boise — This file photo of the Idaho Transportation Department’s old State Street headquarters in Boise was taken March 21, 2021, before the building flooded. (Otto Kitsinger for Idaho Capital Sun)

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Idaho

‘Unrelenting’: Statehouse reporters recap 2026 legislative session in Idaho Falls – East Idaho News

Published

10 hours ago

April 19, 2026

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‘Unrelenting’: Statehouse reporters recap 2026 legislative session in Idaho Falls – East Idaho News

IDAHO FALLS — Two prominent Idaho Statehouse reporters say this past legislative session was “unrelenting,” chaotic, largely driven by budget cuts, and they see the Legislature getting more powerful.

Kevin Richert and Clark Corbin recapped this past legislative session at a forum on the ISU Idaho Falls Campus on Thursday.

Richert is a senior reporter at Idaho Education News, with more than 30 years of experience covering education policy and politics. Corbin is a senior reporter at the Idaho Capital Sun who has covered every Idaho legislative session, gavel to gavel, since 2011.

The event was hosted by the City Club of Idaho Falls, which “exists to sponsor and promote civil dialogue and discourse on all matters of public interest” and strives to be “nonpartisan and nonsectarian,” according to its website.

Budget cuts

Both Richert and Corbin said this session was driven by budget cuts. Corbin said this was due to a lack of revenue stemming from past income tax and the adoption of new federal tax cuts.

“Cuts for almost every state agency and state department dominated the legislative session,” Corbin said. “We’re talking about 4% budget cuts for most state agencies and departments in the current fiscal year, and we’re talking about an additional 5% budget cuts for almost all state agencies and departments starting next year — fiscal year ’27 — and continuing permanently.”

RELATED | Gov. Little signs so-called ‘crappy bill’ to cut state budget

Richert said he thought higher education was taking the brunt of budget cuts. “It’s not a question of whether tuition fees are going to go up at the universities; it’s a question of how much,” he said.

When asked what the future would hold, Corbin said the budget cuts aren’t likely to go away, and their effects will be felt over time.

“There could always be a change of leadership in the House, but they do expect the budget crunch to continue in the next year’s legislative session,” Corbin said.

‘Radiator capping’

Richert said he has one word to describe this year’s legislative session: “unrelenting.”

One thing that made it feel that way was that some bills were recycled over and over, he said. For example, Richert said the Legislature saw five different versions of a bill that proposed cuts to the Idaho Digital Learning Alliance.

“We had multiple bills that came from the dead,” he said.

The journalists said this is partly due to a tactic called “radiator capping.” The term means to replace the entire car — the bill’s text, in political terms — while only keeping the radiator cap: the bill number. By rewriting a bill on the House or Senate floor while maintaining its number, failed bills can effectively bypass the committee process.

“Those are the changes they tried to make on immigration bills, on union bills this year,” Corbin said. “It made it extremely difficult for the public to have any idea what was going on, to have any opportunity to participate in the legislative process and share their opinions.

A more powerful, more chaotic Legislature

Richert said Idaho’s annual legislative sessions are trending longer, commonly going into the early part of April, and producing a record number of bills.

“There are rumblings that this Legislature, as a body, is wanting to expand its reach over more and have even more power over the other branches of government to the point of — are we trending towards more of a full-time professional legislature?” Richert said. “We’re a long way from there.”

“The legislative branch of government, particularly the Idaho House of Representatives, is the most powerful I’ve seen it in 16 years of covering state government,” Corbin said.

He added that this year’s legislative session was unlike any he’s experienced.

“The overall temperature in the building was bad,” Corbin said. “It was divisive. It was chaotic. People were not hiding their feelings of disgust for each other. These traditional ideas of decorum and respect very much fell by the wayside.”

Richert said Gov. Brad Little vetoed very few bills that came across his desk, and the ones he did weren’t high-profile.

RELATED | Idaho Gov. Brad Little issues 5 vetoes. Here are the bills affected

“I think the governor behaved like he was very concerned about the supermajority-controlled Legislature, and I think that that Legislature, in turn, asserted itself and took control of the agenda this year,” Corbin said.

Are legislators representing Idaho?

Corbin said some bills this year also focused on the LGBTQ+ community, such as a bathroom restriction for transgender individuals, and a bill that banned the City of Boise from waving a Pride flag.

RELATED | Idaho governor signs bill to criminalize trans people using bathrooms that align with their identity

RELATED | Boise removes LGBTQ+ pride flag as Idaho governor signs bill to fine city for its display

When asked if these were what Idahoans wanted, Corbin said it doesn’t necessarily appear so to him, based on his review of Boise State University’s annual public policy survey.

“For years and years, I’ve heard concerns about affordability of housing, access to housing, managing the growth of the state of Idaho, having quality public schools available for our young people — that also generates a workforce pipeline for some of our businesses,” Corbin said. “I’ve heard about paying for wildfires. I’ve heard about having good roads, supporting access to public lands, public recreation, those are the concerns I hear from Idahoans.”

“But the Legislature spent a significant amount of time over the last two, three, four years placing additional restrictions on LGBTQ communities, placing restrictions on what teachers can and cannot teach in their classrooms, what school boards can and cannot do,” Corbin continued. “They talked about requiring a moment of silence every day to begin the public school day, where children could pray or read the Bible.”

RELATED | Gov. Brad Little signs public school ‘moment of silence’ bill into law

Corbin said it may be his own opinion, but perhaps it is easier to “make a bunch of noise about what’s going wrong and (distract) people with social issues” rather than focus on harder issues that Idaho faces.

“I think what you saw on the policy space is a reflection of the fact that you had legislators thinking about reelection, and legislators with time on their hands — and that’s not always a good combination,” Richert said.

Accountability

When asked how people can keep legislators accountable, Corbin said it can be done by following the state Legislature through trusted news sources, going to community events and voting.

“This is a great year to practice accountability, because all 105 state legislators and all statewide elected officials are up for election this year,” he said.