BC buys building occupied by KBCI

Abstract

Boise Cascade Corp. exercised an option this month to purchase the building at 1007 W. Jefferson St. in Boise leased by KBCI Television for 40 years and will take possession on July 1. Although Steve Gray, manager of real estate marketing for the giant timber and forest products company, would not divulge the price paid for the 17,000-square-foot building and one-half city block that went with it, the former owners, attorney Robert H. Copple and his wife Helen, had been asking $1.2 million. Tim Bever, general manager of KBCI Television, which had leased the building since 1953, said the station's parent company, Northwest Television, Inc. of Eugene, Ore., had failed to negotiate a deal for the property about two years ago after offering $850,000. (excerpt)

Boise Cascade Corp. exercised an option this month to purchase the building at 1007 W. Jefferson St. in Boise leased by KBCI Television for 40 years and will take possession on July 1.

Although Steve Gray, manager of real estate marketing for the giant timber and forest products company, would not divulge the price paid for the 17,000-square-foot building and one-half city block that went with it, the former owners, attorney Robert H. Copple and his wife Helen, had been asking $1.2 million.

Tim Bever, general manager of KBCI Television, which had leased the building since 1953, said the station's parent company, Northwest Television, Inc. of Eugene, Ore., had failed to negotiate a deal for the property about two years ago after offering $850,000.

Boise Cascade's headquarters building sits at 1111 W. Jefferson on the city block directly west across North 13th Street from the vacated KBCI site. Boise Cascade closed the transaction on April 7, Gray said.

The half-block abutts the half-block parking lot previously owned by Boise Cascade, making the company owner of the entire block.

"We will use the building possibly for records storage, or may demolish it for parking," Gray said. "The building is not a quality building, there is no question about that. Structurally it is not the latest technology; it was built in the late 1940s, I believe."

Gray said he believed the building could be used for storage purposes without any significant remodeling. He said the decision for the use of the property had not been made.

Even without demolishing the nearly 50-year-old partial two-story structure, Boise Cascade gains considerable parking, Gray said, "which is in short supply in this end of town.