Here’s what’s happening with the old Me ‘N Stans lot in Rigby
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RIGBY – A vacant lot in Rigby may soon have a new tenant.
The Rigby Urban Renewal Agency, which owned the site formerly occupied by Me ‘N Stans at 100 West Main Street, unanimously approved a proposed development at that location Thursday night.
Boe Gilstrap is the developer and project manager for a three-story building called “The Hub,” which will include commercial and residential space.
On the main floor will be five retail spaces, with a 3,400-square-foot restaurant and four housing units on the second floor. An additional seven housing units are proposed on the third floor, along with a basement level for storage. Each housing unit is between 1,000 and 1,200-square feet.
Since the project is in the initial planning stages, there’s no way to know who the commercial tenants will be. During the meeting, Gilstrap said there’s been a lot of requests for a nice family restaurant and he hopes it will attract high-quality business for the growing community.
“That’s one aspect of the project that a lot of people are looking forward to,” Gilstrap tells EastIdahoNews.com. “We’ve had restaurants that have been here before that a lot of people have enjoyed. When they left, it left a hole. There are a lot of smaller fast-food restaurants but there isn’t a nice, sit-down restaurant in Rigby.”
An influx of people in the area is the reason behind the housing units, and Gilstrap says condos and townhomes have become increasingly popular in recent years.
“Twenty years ago, everybody (preferred) a small home but that’s changed … especially for the younger generation,” he says. “They don’t want a yard to take care of. We’ve really seen an uptick in (apartments and townhomes) and there’s none of that in Rigby (either). There are also those who would love to buy space they can rent out as an Airbnb.”
The project design adds 22 parking spaces on the north side of the building, which is one of the main concerns the committee expressed during Thursday night’s meeting.
“A one-bedroom apartment can have three people living in it,” one board member pointed out. “There will likely be more than one vehicle (per unit) and there’s going to be a major parking problem.”
In response, Gilstrap explained parking will be an added expense that will never bring in revenue and so the idea is to add more commercial space to the building to help generate more money.
In the end, the proposal was approved contingent upon parking and other issues being worked out. Gilstrap says these issues, combined with labor and supply chain shortages, make it difficult to say when construction will move forward. But once it gets underway, he anticipates it taking about two years to complete.
The Me ‘N Stans building was demolished in March 2021 after sitting vacant for four years. The Urban Renewal Agency bought it and the vacant lot behind it from the previous owners in August 2020.
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Andrew and Jorelle McClellan previously owned the property and had been planning to rent it out as office space for other businesses. Renovations quickly got underway, but safety concerns with the building combined with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to a halt.
“Rigby Urban Renewal offered to buy it a week after we bought it,” Jorelle told us last year. “We told (them) no, and then they kept asking us for about a year, and finally we just decided to sell it.”
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Gilstrap grew up in Rigby and has fond memories of going to Me ‘N Stans as a kid. The site’s been an undeveloped hole in the ground for the last year and he wants it to bring something of value to the community.
“The appeal is to bring something here that I wish we would’ve had when I was growing up,” says Gilstrap. “We’ve got the population to support some of these nicer restaurants or retail (spaces). That’s what they’re looking for and I think it’s a good opportunity.”