Blasting to continue this week on Broadway excavation

An artist's rendition of what the Broadway will look like facing west.

Downtown Idaho Falls is going to be punctuated with the sound of blasting today through Thursday, as excavation work continues on The Broadway, the construction project under way at the corner of Broadway and Memorial.

Over the past couple of weeks, downtowners have heard – and felt – a number of explosions. This week's should be the last ones needed to facilitate groundwork on the development, according to Jeremy Malone, vice president of Oppenhemier Development Corp.

"We're shaking things up both literally and figuratively," he said. "We hope this will be a real catalyst project, something that will help energize the great things already happening in downtown Idaho Falls."

The Broadway is the Boise-based Oppenheimer Development’s first project in Idaho Falls. When finished, the project will be the site of two buildings housing approximately 35,000 square feet of retail and commercial business space; a public plaza featuring a fountain in the summer and potentially a skating rink in the winter; and approximately 71 public parking spaces with 49 below-ground and 22 ground-level spaces. Blasting was called for primarily because the below-ground parking spaces need to be hewed out of lava rock.

The list of new tenants currently includes Bank of Idaho, Lucy’s Pizzeria, Smokin Fins and Parsons Behle & Latimer. Currently, approximately two thirds of the rental space is spoken for.

From the project's inception, Oppenheimer Development has been working closely with the Idaho Falls Redevelopment Agency, the mayor's office and numerous city agencies to be certain that the finished site will be in keeping with the city's needs and vision.

Ammon Kmart store slated to close

Ammon's Kmart store, which will be closing by January.

The Ammon Kmart store, 3101 E. 17th St., will be one of 45 closing this winter, according to an announcement from Sears Holdings, Kmart’s parent company.

The statement said a total of 63 Sears and Kmart stores will close by late January 2018. The Idaho Falls Sears, in the Grand Teton Mall, was not on the list.

"Sears Holdings continues its strategic assessment of the producitvity of our Kmart and Sears store base and will continue to right size our store footprint in number and size," the statement read. "We will continue to close some unprofitable stores as we transform our business model so that our physical store footprint and our digital capabilities match the needs and preferences of our members.

The statement says that eligible employees working at these stores will receive severance and be given the opportunity to apply for open positions at nearby Kmart or Sears stores.

Liquidation sales will begin Nov. 9 at closing stores. This development is the latest in a long line of closings for Sears Holdings. The company announced in July it would be closing 43 stores; in August, another 28.

Here’s an observation, posted on Facebook by a loyal BizmojoIdaho reader, John R. Parsons:

"For years (honest), Clair and I have driven past the local, typically-deserted K-Mart and asked each other, "How does that store survive?" It's been at least a couple of years since we actually set foot in the store. Even two years ago, there was a real funeral home feeling to the place. It was kinda like going to visitation for the deceased and wondering where the casket was. Meanwhile, all the merchandise felt old and unwanted. It was kinda spooky, actually, so spooky that we decided not to go there any more.

Somehow, against all odds, it hung on for these past two years. Now the jig's up and all the deck chairs will be thrown off the ship between now and January. One wonders what's next for that cavernous building with one of the area's largest parking lots?

Alas, Poor Sears. Check out the Sears stock chart. Ten years ago on April 27, 2007, just before the housing bubble burst, Sears was flying high at $191.93 share. Today it's trading at $5.36 (not a typo).

It's kinda sad to see the slow-motion demise of what were once two of America's retail giants. We have very fond memories of the famous K-Mart "Blue Light Specials". Who else remembers those?

Speaking of distant memories, few of you probably remember that K-Mart was actually once S. S. Kresge. And, yes, I have fond memories of shopping in the Lafayette, Indiana S. S. Kresge back in the 1950's. Times....they are a changin'..."

Chapolera Coffee opening shop on First Street

Buttercup Bakery, 335 First Street, is becoming Chapolera Coffee on Nov. 15. This is a great deal for both parties, as Buttercup’s owner, Neccia Hahn, has been trying to sell the business for some time and Chapolera’s owners, Art Baker and Jenny Bueno, have gotten enough of a foothold in the market to move out of the Idaho Innovation Center on North Yellowstone. The three became familiar with each other at the Farmer’s Market.

I know everyone is excited about Dutch Bros. Coffee coming to Idaho Falls (the article I posted yesterday got 43,000 page views, according to the dashboard page, which makes me wonder),  but if you want to know what real coffee tastes like you ought to try Chapolera Coffee.

Baker and Bueno set up shop as specialty coffee roasters in late 2016. Their goal was to bring fair trade values and personal passion to the process, providing high quality coffee that has come from people who have received a fair price for their efforts.


Baker, who has an engineering background, is a Michigan native and University of Michigan graduate. Bueno is a native of Colombia who grew up surrounded by coffee and its culture. The name Chapolera pays homage to the people, more specifically the women, who work on the coffee farms harvesting the coffee. For generations, Chapoleros and Chapoleras have harvested coffee from one farm or region to another, raising their families while on the road.

For more information, visit their web page at https://www.chapoleracoffee.com.

Dutch Bros. building Idaho Falls store on North Woodruff

This is what you can expect to see soon where Sarah's Candy Cottage used to be.

BizMojo Idaho has information from its impeccably reliable sources that Dutch Bros. Coffee will be building its first store in Idaho Falls at 221 N. Woodruff Avenue, where Sarah’s Candy Cottage was.

If you’ve driven on North Woodruff in the last week, you undoubtedly will have noticed that the quaint little building where Sarah’s used to be has been razed. A permit for an 800-square-foot structure has been applied for at the Idaho Falls Building Department.

Dutch Bros. currently has several stores in Idaho, in the Treasure Valley, the Panhandle and one in Twin Falls.

The company was founded in 1992 in Grants Pass, Ore., by Dane and Travis Boersma, who’d opened a coffee stand at Dutcher Creek Golf Course. Third-generation dairy farmers, the realities of that business forced them out, so they took their espresso machine and experimented with a hundred pounds of coffee in their empty milk house. After a month of handing out free samples to friends and family, the duo began serving up mochas and lattes at a pushcart set up in downtown Grants Pass. They named their company Dutch Bros., and over the next few years permanent kiosks opened in other parts of the city, including a coffeehouse a few blocks from the original stand.

Today, the company is the country’s largest, privately held drive-thru coffee company, with more than 260 locations in seven states and over 5,000 employees. Dutch Bros. still gives away drinks — now over one million each year — to further the company's mission of “spreading the Dutch Luv.” The company donates over $2 million a year to its local communities and non-profit organizations, including the Muscular Dystrophy Association, in honor of Dane Boersma, who passed away in 2009 after a four-year battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

EIRMC names new assistant administrator

Nick Manning

Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center has named Nicholas Manning to the hospital’s administrative team. As an assistant administrator, Manning partners with EIRMC’s leadership in administering daily operations and directly leads several departments.

Manning comes to EIRMC from HCA’s (EIRMC’s parent company) Mountain Division, where he most recently served as senior director of operations improvement. Prior to that, he served as associate administrator at Odessa Regional Medical Center, a 225-bed facility in Odessa, Texas. He has also held positions at Ogden Regional Medical Center, a sister HCA hospital in Ogden, Utah, and a position as division director of support services at HCA’s Mountain Division.

Manning earned his bachelor's in health administrative services from Weber State University and his Masters of Business Administration in Healthcare Management from the University of Scranton. Manning is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Manning was born and raised in Ogden, Utah. He enjoys camping, hiking, skiing, and rock hounding. He is an avid supporter of the arts and is committed to building stronger communities through participant engagement and through fostering meaningful relationships with others.

Economic development in Idaho Falls is about more than big box stores

The INL development on Idaho Falls' north side is hugely important.

The election fuss about Idaho Falls “losing” business to Ammon and unincorporated Bonneville County only makes sense if you look at economic development in a “winners and losers” way. It’s a little early for a year-end economic roundup, but in light of the coming mayoral election let’s look at what’s been happening in Idaho Falls recently.

The Broadway at the corner of Broadway and Memorial promises to be a spectacular addition to downtown. Renovation of the Bonneville Hotel, the city’s crown jewel in 1927, is likely to start in the spring. Neither would have come about without the efforts of the Idaho Falls Redevelopment Agency, which had conducted a study analyzing demand for downtown housing. The report that followed estimated a demand for housing units between 455 to 502 units.

Studies are one thing, but I think the most significant thing to happen downtown was the success of the the lofts at 504 Shoup Avenue, in the old Montgomery Ward building, above Happy’s. Those eight units filled right up, demonstrating to everyone a desire for nice living space downtown.

Springhill Suites, Eagle Rock Indian Motorcycle and Culver's have gotten things moving at Taylor Crossing on the River, and the Waterfront at Snake River Landing has filled an important niche.

Apple Athletic owner Steve Vucovich is developing the 21,000 square feet near to Smith’s on Woodruff Avenue, which has been vacant since Curtiss-Wright Flow Control Scientech relocated its offices to Snake River Landing in 2014.

The biggest economic development of the past year was the Idaho Legislature’s  approval of $90 million in bonds to fund the construction of two new Idaho National Laboratory buildings: the Cybercore Integration Center and the Collaborative Computing Center. The first will serve as a research, education and training facility for cybersecurity work and the second will host a new supercomputer for modeling and simulation workloads. University partners in the state will also be able to use the supercomputer for their research and education efforts. The activities are expected to bring 500 high-paying tech jobs into the area, plus approximately 1,000 temporary construction jobs.

Personally, I’d like to know what’s up with electrical power development on the city’s north side. With all the high-tech development that has taken place, reliable electricity is absolutely essential. When the power glitches out at the Energy Innovation Laboratory or the Center for Advanced Energy Studies, it puts research and expensive equipment in jeopardy.

We haven't heard much about the North Loop Transmission Project. Considering all the bad press the previous administration got in 2012, my assumption is that Idaho Falls is working toward getting this issue resolved under the radar. I know the city has good relations with INL, pursuing a two-year, $1 million grid modernization collaboration to make the city’s municipal power distribution more dependable.

Overall, I think the present administration has shown a very thoughtful and measured approach to growth, not chasing after "bright shiny objects" but looking at development in a sensible and progressive way. Both Idaho Falls and Ammon have more important things to attend to than bragging about who got which big box store.

INL exceeds small business procurement goal for fifth straight year

For the fifth consecutive year, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory has exceeded its small business procurement goal and the commitment it made to do business in the state of Idaho.


When fiscal year 2017 ended on Sept. 30, Battelle Energy Alliance, which has the INL management and operations contract with DOE, reported it had spent $194,555,080 with small business. That represents 58.1 percent of the business INL did overall and far surpasses the $150.7 million (51 percent) it agreed to at the beginning of the fiscal year.


INL spent 41.8 percent with small businesses in Idaho, far above the 30 percent attainment goal set for the year.

“We very much value our partnership with so many innovative Idaho businesses,” said Dennis Newby, INL chief financial officer. “We are fortunate to work with high-caliber businesses across Idaho that support our needs.”

In this last year, INL prioritized strengthening its partnership with small business, paying particular attention to businesses in Idaho. Small business goals are part of the DOE contract, and each year, new goals are negotiated to determine what percentage of procurement volume is to be set aside.

INL contracts with small businesses for materials and services that include consumables such as office supplies, fuels, and information technology equipment, as well as construction services and skilled expertise in key research areas.

INL has a long history of meeting DOE procurement goals, but this year it wanted to go beyond what was typical. The INL small business team travels throughout Idaho to share opportunities for contracting and partnering to do research, and shares information about proposal writing to increase a business’s chances of receiving an award. This effort paid off.

The national statutory requirement for small business procurement is 51 percent. In 2016 and 2015, INL hit 58.6 percent and 55.9 percent, respectively, so agreeing to the national requirement was a bar lab leadership felt it could clear easily. INL has worked hard to cultivate relationships with small businesses, especially ones in Idaho, said Stacey Francis, the lab’s Small Business Program manager.

“It is a win-win when we have local businesses able to supply us with what we need,” Francis said. “We recognize the benefit of partnering with small business for ease of use, the level of expertise available and exceptional customer service.”

Socioeconomic goals are also set for small, disadvantaged businesses, Historically Underutilized Business (HUBZone) businesses, firms owned by women and service-disabled veterans, and businesses in Idaho. In FY-17, INL also met its five socioeconomic procurement goals for the third straight year.

“I am proud of INL’s commitment to work with small business,” Francis said. “As the lab continues to grow, small business will continue to play a big part in our success.”