Courtesy of Idaho Statesman:
Buy a Tesla? Elon Musk’s company has noticed Idaho’s Treasure Valley. What’s coming
BY ELENA GASTALDO
UPDATED JULY 05, 2024 10:24 AM
Are you the kind of car buyer with the money and the desire to purchase one of Elon Musk’s Teslas? If so, take note: A new Tesla dealership is under construction in Meridian. The dealership is going up on 5.7 acres at 2554 W. Franklin Road, next to an Amazon distribution center that was finished two years ago near Ten Mile Road. Tesla already has a dealership near Cole and Victory roads in Southwest Boise, but it’s tucked away in a multitenant industrial building at 2592 Beverly St. that few drivers pass. Tesla wanted a traditional location with higher visibility, said Brad Miller, managing director at Boise’s Adler Industrial, the new dealership’s developer.
The one-story dealership will be on a prominent street and will display two or three cars behind glass walls, Miller said. He said Tesla chose the location because the area around Ten Mile’s interchange with Interstate 84 and its intersection with Franklin Road has become the center of Idaho’s Treasure Valley.
“As the Ten Mile-Franklin area builds out, it’s just a spectacular location with all the development that’s going on there,” Miller said by phone. Tesla has dominated the rising U.S. electric-vehicle market so far, CNET reported in March. Musk, the CEO who also runs SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter), cofounded Tesla in 2003. CNET listed prices for Tesla models ranging from $40,000 to nearly $99,000, including the angular, avant-garde Cybertruck, sightings of which recently began to rise in the Treasure Valley.
Adler Industrial also built and owns the Amazon distribution center. The company is working on about 10 buildings in the Ten Mile Area, he said. Discussions between Adler and Tesla began in the fall of 2022. They entered into a long-term lease in July 2023. Tesla will occupy the dealership this September, Miller said. He said he does not know when the dealership will open. An email to Tesla was not returned.
The dealership will provide sales and service. While large car dealerships display hundreds of cars, Tesla’s showroom will have only 1,700 square feet, because every car at Tesla is made to order depending on a buyer’s budget, lifestyle and driving habits. All the new cars ordered from the Meridian area will be delivered to the new dealership, where they will be cleaned and prepared for customers, Miller said.
SUPERCHARGER AT SONIC, DESTINATION CHARGERS AT HOTELS
The dealership will have a Supercharger station, where Tesla car owners will be able to recharge their EVs speedily using direct current. It would be the third Supercharger station in the Boise area: There’s one at 851 N. Orchard St., next to a Sonic Drive-in restaurant on the Bench; and one at 1426 S. Entertainment Ave. behind the Oxford Suites Boise. The area also has two, slower-charging Destination Charging stations, a type often located at restaurants, hotels or shopping centers. They are free to use for Tesla drivers who are customers of the destinations. Boise has one at the Residence Inn by Marriott at 1401 S. Lusk Place, and Meridian has one at the Candlewood Suites at 1855 S. Silverstone Way.
The designer for the dealership was Meridian’s ADP Architects, which had weekly meetings with Tesla’s project managers. Glenn Walker, principal architect at ADP, said Tesla gave them conceptual ideas with examples of other dealerships they have across the country.
“It’s not the exact design as their buildings, but the look is fairly similar,” Walker said by phone. This project was more challenging and “a lot more intense” than other buildings they worked on with Adler that are “more straightforward and cookie-cutter,” Walker said. Tesla had extensive specifications for the building, he said. Miller said the dealership will not have a noticeable impact on the level of traffic on Franklin Road. He said some “car related businesses” have contacted them and showed interest in the location and in being close to a Tesla dealership.
Two of Adler’s industrial buildings are going to be built across the street from the Tesla dealership, and one is going to be at the traffic signal to the east of the dealership, Miller said. They have yet to know who the buildings will be rented out to. Adler will break ground on these three buildings in the next 60 days, while their remaining seven projects will be carried out over the next five to six years, Miller said.
