Top Story
Recent ULI Idaho tour of Kount
April 9, 2019
The ULI Young Leaders Group hosted yet another outstanding tour, showcasing a fraction of the buildings going up all over Boise and surrounding areas. The Kount Building is an example of what can be done to be Sustainable utilizing an existing building while enriching the diverse activity at street level with ground floor commercial uses.
The vision of the project was to create a mixed use multi-tenant space that was highly active and engaging, both to the occupants of the building as well as the greater Downtown. Neckar coffee was the first tenant to occupy a ground floor retail space and was the test case to see how a concrete shell building would look in a retail setting. Experiencing the space alleviated concerns over the commercial areas feeling too cold and stark, rather it reflected an environment of a contrasting wood warmed concrete interior.
The tenant for the space is Kount, a tech company of 160 employees who wanted to show off what Downtown Boise has to offer, as well as add to the urban fabric. In addition, the company chose the location based on heat map studies of employee living locations. Being a high security tech firm, the building contains top grade secure access control systems, miles of data cable and zonal temperature control for efficiency and employee productivity.
Building buildings is no easy task and when you throw the dynamics of an existing concrete shell building in a dense downtown location, multi-tenant demands, demolition constraints and unknowns, multi-tract tenant build out schedules and a high cost construction environment, you begin to gain a clearer understanding of the skill, craft and tenacity it took to complete a project of this magnitude.
Of course it is people who make things happen.
Many companies and individuals played a role in the project creation and construction. At the project conception, Thornton Oliver Keller was the listing Agent working with Kount to find a space that would fit their needs. Anderson Construction was the General Contractor who worked closely with CTA Architects and Engineers, as well as Paradigm of Idaho building owner representatives to coordinate the project we now know as Kount.
Thank you to all who made this project happen and for bringing yet another positive addition to the Downtown core.