UI building in Boise will open half vacant

BOISE – While the University of Idaho’s overall plan for a Boise satellite may have been financially flawed, the one surviving building has come in on time and under budget.

Construction work should be wrapped up next week on the Idaho Water Center at $4.5 million below the anticipated cost.

Still, the remnant of the botched multibuilding University Place project has left the school and its foundation $25 million in debt, even though the Water Center coming in under budget should help that.

But the university’s other financial problems – a combination of unchecked internal overspending and reduced support from the state Legislature – is leaving a significant portion of the interior of the 204,000-square-foot building unfinished.

There is no timetable to complete that work.

That has limited commercial interest in the space open to outside leases and prevented the university from relocating much of its Boise-based operation. The combination of rents from commercial lessees and the diversion of cash the school now pays for rent in other Boise locations was supposed to finance its $3 million share of the annual bond payment.

“Most of the tenants seeking space in Boise are not willing to lease until it is brought up to a certain level,” said Gerard Billington, the university’s real estate officer.

The center’s major tenants, the Idaho Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station, will move in this fall along with some of the university’s education programs. But 45 percent of the building will remain vacant.

Washington Group International Inc. had briefly considered leasing some space for an executive training center, but it decided facilities in its headquarters building just a block away were adequate.

The school needs $3.7 million to completely relocate to the center, and it has considered several options for generating the cash. But decisions are pending the recommendations of a special task force the university’s new president, Tim White, set up to assess the financial crisis and recommend ways to deal with it. That report is likely in October.

The State Board of Education meets next week, and spokeswoman Luci Willits says members will be looking for the university’s long-term plans for the empty space and how it intends to cover its financial obligation on the bonds while it goes unleased.