A new place to get your caffeine fix before taking to the skies is coming near the Boise Airport, but it won’t have an oversized parking lot.
On Tuesday, the Boise City Council heard an application for a conditional use permit for a drive-thru window at a new Starbucks at 2730 W Airport Way that will replace an old U.S. Bank branch. But, despite the window being the main topic of the application for the three-acre site, the topic of how many parking spaces the popular coffee shop chain would need dominated the conversation.
The company, through KM Engineering, filed an appeal of the Planning & Zoning Commission’s decision to keep the parking spaces in the lot capped to 19 instead of the 30 the company hoped to include with its new building. The application was submitted under the city’s old zoning code, and those rules apply.
The Boise City Council sided against the company’s ask and opted to keep the parking spaces capped at the lower number in accordance with the city’s zoning ordinance rules that include parking maximums. The majority of council members, staff and the Planning & Zoning Commission said they wanted to keep the parking to only 19 spaces in order to keep large parking lots to a minimum, especially at one of the major entrances to the city, and further the city’s climate goals of reducing dependence on cars.
City Council President Colin Nash and City Council Member Luci Willits voted against the motion to keep the parking spots capped at 19.
City Council Member Jordan Morales said while large parking lots are often good for businesses, the need in the area for parking is due to the lack of adequate space for people waiting to pick up passengers at the airport. He said this should change when the city finishes its work to expand parking and waiting options at the Boise Airport.
“We don’t want to be encouraging people to look at a bunch of different places to park and wait for passengers,” he said. “It’s one of those things that is systemic of where we are, but there are plans in the works to be able to alleviate that.”
Starbucks: More space needed near airport
This new Starbucks will be a newly constructed building designed specifically to fit on the lot, which is located across the street from the Idaho Department of Water Resources and near the now-shuttered Airport Inn. The City of Boise’s airport decision owns the land under the current bank and future Starbucks.
Stephanie Hopkins, with KM Engineering, argued Starbucks based its initial application on plans to accommodate only 33 seats in the restaurant. This translated to only 11 parking spaces required and a cap of 19. But, since then, she said the coffee chain has redesigned the interior with different seating to accommodate 57 people because of the likely influx of people visiting to wait for their flights or to pick up passengers.
She said if the company had applied with this number of seats in the first place and used the city’s process to ask for a parking waiver instead of waiting until the CUP process to discuss getting approval for extra parking, it would have been allowed to have 29 spaces.
“It should not be on the onus of private development to provide parking for the airport,” she said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that folks will use this parking lot as they use the Chevron parking lot to wait for planes to come and go. We want it to be adequately parked so it can serve Starbucks customers whether they’re grabbing a drink or waiting.”
‘Moving in the direction of less parking’
Council members weren’t convinced.
During the question and answer portion before the vote, city council members asked city staff if they would have been likely to approve the additional spaces even if Starbucks asked for a waiver and the city planning staffer said it would not have been approved.
City Council President Pro Tem Meredith Stead said the city is “actively moving in the direction of less parking” in its policymaking.
“Staff said this accommodates up to 57 seats and because of our trend to go less parking this would have happened even if you presented with that maximum seat count at that time,” she said. “Even if you’re seeing that as an error on your part, I don’t think it would have made a difference.”
Willits disagreed. She said the area near the airport is part of the city where people will always drive, and parking is needed as a result.
“We’re all willing to do right by the environment, but I don’t think ten less parking spaces is going to save the environment here,” she said. “The reality is people will drive to the airport and we need to trust our businesses and private property owners about what their business needs.”