POCATELLO — People will soon begin moving into NeighborWorks Pocatello’s Bonneville Commons subdivision as the much needed project nears completion.

An endeavor that began in 2020 with the demolition of Bonneville Elementary School on North Eighth Avenue after the building sat vacant for 17 years is anticipated to be fully completed around the first quarter of 2024.

NeighborWorks Pocatello Executive Director Mark Dahlquist said one of the new subdivision’s 26 housing units has been furnished and established as a showcase home, adding that local residents are beginning to make offers on the finished properties. The remaining homes and landscaping work will be completed over the coming months, he said.

“Building wise, things are going very well,” Dahlquist said. “We’re thinking probably around January or February the project will be 100 percent complete. About half of the homes are finished there and we’re just working on getting the landscaping and finishing touches done.”

Some of the landscaping work at the Bonneville Commons subdivision, located between the 300 blocks of North Eighth and North Ninth avenues, will actually be paid for and installed by Wells Fargo, according to a recent news release from NeighborWorks Pocatello.

To assist with the landscaping at Bonneville Commons, Wells Fargo recently provided NeighborWorks Pocatello with a $40,000 grant. Additionally, local Wells Fargo employees will be assisting with the planting of several trees around the perimeter of the subdivision during a “Welcome Home” volunteer event scheduled from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday.

“One major goal of this project is to help revitalize the Bonneville Neighborhood,” Dahlquist said. “If we want the development to look its very best and be something the neighborhood and community can take pride in, a high standard of landscaping is needed and it’s something that shouldn’t be skimped on. An injection of an extra $40,000 for this specific purpose is a huge boon to the project and makes those all-important finishing touches a reality.”

According to the NeighborWorks Pocatello news release, Wells Fargo is a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank, or FHLB. Earlier this year, Wells Fargo worked closely with NeighborWorks Pocatello to obtain matching dollars from the FHLB of Des Moines’ Member Impact Fund, which was a one-time fund set up to support non-profit housing organizations that have established relationships with FHLB member institutions.

Wells Fargo leveraged a 3-1 match from the FHLB to NeighborWorks Pocatello and eight other nonprofits across the state, the news release said. This is above and beyond the $40,000 grant for landscaping, meaning Wells Fargo has supported and facilitated a total of $112,000 to NeighborWorks Pocatello in 2023.

“Today’s landscaping work is part of a Wells Fargo initiative called ‘Welcome Home,’ whereby bank employees across the country are working with local nonprofits like NeighborWorks Pocatello to make an impact in the communities where we serve, live and work,” said Kory Call, district branch network senior manager at Wells Fargo. “Through Welcome Home, Wells Fargo has provided over $2 million in funding to charity partners to engage in housing affordability community engagement events. The funding supports more than 250 events working to achieve affordable, sustainable housing and communities across the global footprint.”

The goal for the Bonneville Commons project is to provide more attainable and affordable housing in the Gate City area. The project is providing 26 new housing units spread across 18 properties at the Bonneville Commons subdivision and consists of 12 single-family homes, four twin-homes and two triplexes.

NeighborWorks Pocatello is investing just over $8 million in this 26-unit project. There will be a common area maintained by a homeowners association that will include a large wood pergola in the shape of a railroad roundhouse in the middle of the common area.

“We are really thrilled with the look and feel of the new Bonneville Commons,” Dahlquist said. “Not only is it providing some new attainable housing for the community, but it’s also providing a major uplift to one of Pocatello’s oldest and most historic neighborhoods.”

Dahlquist explained the subdivision includes both properties that are being offered at market value as well as others, six homes in total, that have been designated for low and moderate income households making less than 80 percent of the median income.

Special financing is available for the six income-restricted homes so that qualified buyers will have affordable monthly house payments, Dahlquist said.

The homes at Bonneville Commons each range in size from 1,080 to 1,600 square feet, have two to three bedrooms and a single car garage.

“The reason why we’re not designating each and every home there for households with low and moderate income is we want to provide some affordable housing, but we did not want to put 26 low-income families in one block because that really doesn’t do any good favors for the neighborhood,” Dahlquist said. “That’s why we’ve chosen to do a mix of affordable homes and market rate homes. The Bonneville neighborhood is a low-income census tract neighborhood, so not only do you need some affordable housing, but you also need some people that have disposable income and frequent the stores and the restaurants around here.”

From the time vertical construction on the new subdivision began in October 2022, Dahlquist said there haven’t been many roadblocks or obstacles. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t any adversity to overcome earlier in the process, however, he said.

Dahlquist commended the city of Pocatello and the staff within the city’s planning and zoning department for being receptive to feedback on city zoning ordinances throughout the planning stages of the project.

“We had this vision for development and the current city zoning ordinances weren’t really what we thought they were,” Dahlquist said. “The Bonneville neighborhood was platted like 100 years ago. Back then, the way lots were all laid out worked a century ago, but they don’t work very well now. We had to really work closely with the city of Pocatello planning department to get some of the zoning codes changed, particularly what are called infill codes, that just weren’t really a good fit for modern 21st century development. Kudos to the city and to the planning department. I feel like they really listened to us and it ultimately came down to the City Council taking action to get that changed.”

The Bonneville Commons project is such a unique success that the Idaho-Montana Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has elected to convene in Pocatello as opposed to Boise this year, partly to hold a guided walking tour of the new subdivision, Dahlquist said.

According to a recent news release from ASLA, “This project, named Bonneville Commons for its seamless integration into the Bonneville Neighborhood and its replacement of the abandoned Bonneville School building, represents the intersection of public policy, research-based planning, community engagement, and pioneering design to strengthen community.... The project’s exceptional outcomes include the amendment of the city’s infill development code that will facilitate future investment in the city’s urban core, an approved plat for housing that will provide direct relief to a region desperately seeking quality workforce housing, and an exceptional community designed in step with the Bonneville Neighborhood that enables residents at different life-stages to find comfort and community.”

This site tour, co-led by The Land Group’s Principal Landscape Architect, Matthew Adams, and Dahlquist, is an informal opportunity to see the transformative impact of infill development patterns, modernized zoning ordinance, and exceptional commitment to livable communities from landscape architects and non-profit developers. The one-hour tour will begin at 2 p.m. on Oct. 5 at 962 E. Lander St. For more information contact Maggie Clark at 406-490-7610 or maggieclarkpla@gmail.com, or Matthew Adams at 208-939-4041 or matt@thelandgroupinc.com.

Seeing this project near completion and understanding all of the hours that many individuals poured into the effort over the past three years leaves Dahlquist feeling a great sense of satisfaction.

“Seeing this project get to this point is extremely gratifying,” he said. “Hearing input from the public on an almost daily basis, things like, ‘Hey, I drove by there and it looks wonderful, you guys are doing such a great job,’ is such a great feeling. Knowing that we repurposed 2,000 bricks from Bonneville Elementary and some of the concrete medallions that were on the school’s facade into the construction of these new homes is really gratifying. We were able to be creative with our development and I think it’s little things like that that the community will really appreciate.”