Idaho Falls indoor trampoline center opens

iJump owner Jacob Lundquist and his son Ezra. Lundquist and his wife, Natalie, have opened an indoor fun center with nearly 6,000 square feet of trampolines and foam.

iJump, an indoor trampoline center with close to 6,000 square feet of bounce, opened this evening at 6. The address is 2670 E. 14th North, which means you turn off Hitt Road at Majestic Auto Body and proceed east for about 1/4 mile.

Owners Jacob and Natalie Lundquist got the idea for the business from similar places in the West, and wanted to run a business where kids and families could have fun and enjoy physical activity. iJump features a Wee Jump area, a dodge ball court, an open jump area and foam pits. There is a mezzanaine area for birthday parties and an eating area.

Everyone must have a signed waiver to jump. Those under 18 must have their parents sign and complete the waiver and those over 18 must have current ID with them.

To visit the Facebook page, go to https://www.facebook.com/ijumpidaho. They will be giving away free jumps when they hit 1,000 likes.

The regular Web address is http://www.ijumpidaho.com. For more information, call (208) 881-5108

AmeriTel begins rebranding Ammon, Idaho Falls hotels

The new lettering at Ammon's La Quinta Inn was half-finished Friday at lunchtime. The Boise-based AmeriTel chain is rebranding most of the hotels it owns. While the Teton Spectrum hotel is now a La Quinta, the Lindsay Boulevard hotel will become a Hampton Inn next month.

The new signs went up Thursday and today, and the AmeriTel Inn at the Teton Spectrum in Ammon is now a La Quinta Inn. In mid-April, the AmeriTel on Lindsay Boulevard will become a Hampton Inn.

This doesn't mean AmeriTel has left the business. "We still own the hotels," said Chuck Everett, the Boise-based chain's vice president for operations. "We needed to reinvest in the properties, and we decided the best way to leverage the reinvestment costs was to rebrand the properties. It's increasingly difficult these days to operate as an independent hotelier."

The Lindsay Boulevard hotel opened in June 1996 and the Ammon hotel opened in May 2000. Since then, the local environment has become increasingly competitive, especially since the openings of the Fairfield Inn and the Hilton Garden Inn.

The conversions have been in the works for two years, and are part of a company-wide rebranding. The Ameritel in Twin Falls recently became a La Quinta Inn and the hotel at the Boise Spectrum will be a Hampton Inn & Suites by May. By this summer, the only AmeriTels left will be in Pocatello, Coeur d'Alene and Boise.

La Quinta and Hampton Inn are both owned by the Blackstone Group, but operate independently.

Given the Hampton Inn already on Channing Way, the Ammon AmeriTel couldn't be rebranded a Hampton Inn. There are a lot of considerations that go into rebranding and remodeling a hotel, Everett said. The other main thing is whether a franchise can be fit into an existing property.

To convert the Lindsay Boulevard hotel into a Hampton Inn & Suites, which they would have liked, it would require a two-story lobby and tearing out rooms to generate more suites. Nevertheless, the look and feel of the Hampton Inn on Lindsay Boulevard is going to be completely different from the AmeriTel, Everett said.

REAL ESTATE SNAPSHOT | FEB. 2012

Bonneville County

Active listings in January-February 2012 were 309 compared to 270 in 2011.
 
There were 143 closings compared to 107 the previous year.

Median price of sold homes was $123,125 in compared to $145,125 in 2011.

There were 149 new properties under contract in February 2012, up 21% from February 2011.

Year-to-date closings were 33.6% above January-February 2011.

Median price of sold homes was 17.8% below January-February 2011.
                                        
                        2007          2008          2009          2010          2011          2012 
UNITS SOLD               242            169            108            103            107            143
MEDIAN PRICE          $146,700   $160,450   $152,225   $144,750   $145,125   $123,125
NEW LISTINGS           273            318            342            427            270           309
DAYS ON MARKET    101            102            125            109            114           133  

Source: Snake River MLS

Ball Ventures hires new asset manager

Tahri Molifua

Tahri Molifua has joined Ball Ventures as an asset manager. He was most recently with The Richman Group, a large, privately held multi-family residential property owner. As an associate, he performed acquisition and property management for the company's Orange County team.

He attended Brigham Young University - Idaho,  where he majored in communications, then went on to study at Cornell University, where he received an MPS Real Estate degree. He returns to Idaho with his wife, Kehaulani, and their three children.

FleetPride buys out Trane's Diesel

FleetPride, Inc., the nation's largest independent aftermarket distributor of heavy-duty truck and trailer parts, announced Monday that it has acquired the assets of Trane's Diesel Service, Inc. in Idaho Falls. This acquisition includes a 23,000-square-foot facility with 14 service bays located at 683 East Iona Road.

Trane's Diesel is a full-service repair, maintenance, service and parts facility founded in 2002 by Cal Trane and his sons Joel and Andy Trane. Cal Trane will stay on in a consulting role and both Joel and Andy Trane will join FleetPride in management roles. Employment offers were extended to all employees.

The company recently acquired six other locations in Idaho and Utah. "This is a well-run business in a location FleetPride has been interested in for some time," said Lee Stockseth, FleetPride's chief operating officer.

A sweet surprise from the past

I could sing the praises of Sarah's Candy Cottage for any number of reasons -- the truffle and fudge samples, the dozen-plus different kinds of licorice -- but nothing compares to the excitement I felt last month when I discovered they had Bonomo Turkish Taffy.

"I thought they stopped making this years ago!" I thought, as I loaded up the bucket with the individually wrapped pieces.

Based on my rhapsodizing about the Slurpee in a previous post, you've probably figured out that anything sweet from my childhood is going to get me going pretty good. As many Baby Boomers can attest, Turkish Taffy is probably best remembered for the way we smacked a bar of it in its foil wrapper against a tabletop or sidewalk. Harder than salt water taffy, it could keep you occupied for a while and take a few fillings from you in the bargain.

Turns out it did disappear in the 1980s, after Hershey's bought Bonomo, monkeyed with the formula and renamed it. It was resurrected in 2010 by some fifty-somethings with fond memories. Here's to them, and here's a link to a story than ran in Fortune Magazine: http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/10/27/bonomos-turkish-taffy-returns/

Contractor seeks subcontractor bids for BYU-Idaho apartment project

The 43-unit apartment, as rendered above, will be at West Fourth South and South Fourth West.

Brigham Young University-Idaho is building a five-story, 43-unit apartment project to be used as women’s housing.

Headwaters Construction is seeking subcontractor bids by March 22 for Birch Legacy Apartments, an off-campus project planned for West Fourth South and South Fourth West streets in Rexburg.

Headwaters, which is based in Victor and has a Rexburg office, has built other housing for BYU-Idaho, including a larger complex completed in December for women.

“They have asked the community to come up with housing,” Headwaters President Stan Marshall said. “They are basically increasing enrollment as housing is built.”

Project architect Douglas Gibson, of Eagle-based DG Group Architecture, said the site is in a Rexburg zoning overlay district that calls for higher-density residential uses and pedestrian access close to the BYU-Idaho campus.

The apartments will be owned by The Pacific Companies and Braintree Development, both of Eagle, and Rexburg resident Trent Birch.

Construction on the $5.5 million, 75,000-square-foot building will start in April and is expected to take about a year. The complex will have exercise and tanning rooms, common-area meeting space, a media room, and on-site storage for each unit, Gibson said.