Top Story
Observations and Opportunities: Public Processes
Democracy relies on the ability of people to participate in decision making. The coronavirus has changed how we conduct this process.
Observations and Opportunities: Coeur d'Alene
May 20, 2020
This week, we look to Coeur d’Alene to see how they are responding to the coronavirus and whether there are differences for the region. We talked to Ben Widmyer, President of Widmyer Corporation and Chris Meyer, President of Parkwood Properties.
Ben Widmyer
President, Widmyer Corporation
As a family-owned development company, how has COVID-19 impacted your day to day business?
The biggest impact has been ensuring our tenants and employees remain safe. Adjusting to working from home and communicating through email and text with our tenants.
COVID-19 really has not put a hold on our acquisitions. We are continuing to look at opportunities throughout the northwest. On the brokerage side we have seen some of our clients look to shift from retail investments to industrial or multi family.
Do you think that the Coeur d’Alene area is poised for a quick recovery?
It is difficult to project how fast the recovery will take place without knowing when a vaccine will come. We are heavily dependent on the hospitality business which has been hardest hit. As a state we seem to be opening up earlier than a lot of other places and many people from Washington are coming over.
What opportunities, if any, have you identified from this crisis – whether for your business, or for our communities?
It has given us an opportunity to bring our clean and safety standards up. As with any economic downturn there will be opportunities to acquire assets and find some value add properties.
Chris Meyer
Partner, Parkwood Business Properties
As a family-owned development company, how has COVID-19 impacted your day to day business?
We have gone to a skeleton crew in the office to keep the lights on and handle maintenance remotely if possible. We’re monitoring our facilities staff carefullly as they provide the essential support services required to keep our buildings safe and operational. Many are in stressful high infection risk environments like medical office buildings so we’re working extra hard at flexing work hours to allow them to recharge and relax and avoid burnout and maintain mental health. We’re also working with all our tenants to adjust to the new shared economic pain in our community and offering as much help and financial flexibility as we can. Communication both to and from our tenants is key.
Do you think that the Coeur d’Alene area is poised for a quick recovery?
We’re still bullish on Kootenai County and North Idaho. The COVID-19 crisis has shown a few unexpected downsides of living in the larger coastal communities so we expect to see continued migration into our area.
One possible upside to the recent quarantine experience is a growing appreciation of the value of neighborhoods and the self-reliant micro networks that can be created within a few block radius. Centralized supply chains have become a potential weakness in the marketplace so keeping things local can be more dependable in a crisis like this. Time will tell if these connections will be fleeting or enduring, and I certainly hope for the latter.
How has COVID-19 impacted your plans for future projects or forecasts?
We’re still advancing development plans in the multifamily and self-storage sectors. People will still need places to live in Kootenai County and multifamily is emerging as a more attractive property type but with social distancing considerations in the common space design. With the transition to more working from home folks are clearing out their spare rooms to make home offices so that drives up demand for storage units. We have put some proposed new retail on the back burner as the long term disruption to that industry from COVID-19 is much less clear. A sorting of the sector seems afoot, perhaps into smaller footprint stores that are even lighter on inventory with an emphasis on fulfilling online orders. Drive through contactless commerce seems really appealing to many folks right now and we’ll see how readily the market reverts to prior norms for in-person retail shopping.
What opportunities, if any, have you identified from this crisis – whether for your business, or for our communities?
It seems that the office work experience is evolving from an emphasis on dense open plans to more enclosed offices and larger per employee square footage metrics. This will certainly change the calculus for landlords to customize floor plans for short term tenants with the higher capital costs associated with enclosed larger offices. I also feel there is a renewed appreciation of the social aspects of more generous common areas like courtyards and atriums where tenants can still feel connected but maintain safe social distancing.