Ever Onward Podcast

Boise’s Blueprint for Growth with Michael Ballantyne | Ever Onward - Ep. 96

• Ahlquist. • Season 1 • Episode 96

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Boise is in a renaissance—and not the glossy kind that happens only on brochures. We’re talking about the gritty, sleeves-rolled-up version driven by accurate data, shared ownership, and citizens who show up when roads, schools, and hospitals feel the strain. With TOK Commercial’s managing partner Michael Ballantyne, a seventh-generation Idahoan and pillar of the Treasure Valley, we follow the throughline from family roots and adoption to a leadership philosophy that treats service as a core operating system.

Michael pulls back the curtain on TOK’s growth model: celebrate people at every level, expand only to create opportunity, and build your own research so decisions are grounded in what’s real, not what’s reported. That data advantage matters in non-disclosure markets and “lifestyle” regions like Boise and Spokane where national tools miss the mark. We unpack why office isn’t dead, how industrial overbuilt at the big end while small-bay space is scarce, and where retail thrives when it becomes Amazon-proof through services and experiences. The center of gravity keeps shifting west, and mixed-use will reshape legacy sites as the valley evolves.

We also tackle the issues everyone feels: growth fatigue, infrastructure gaps, and the housing squeeze that turned a once-affordable market into a tougher climb. The fix isn’t a slogan; it’s policy and participation. Cities need to allow more apartments, townhomes, and condos, streamline entitlements, and stop treating infill like a four-letter word. Impact fees and process friction matter. So does showing up—at chamber committees, BVEP, city council, and nonprofit boards—where Boise’s cross-partisan, practical problem-solving still works.

If you care about how a city scales without losing its soul, this conversation is a blueprint: measure what matters, invest in people, build the missing supply, and keep the civic muscle strong. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves Boise (or wants to), and leave a review with the one change you’d make to improve housing or infrastructure—we’ll feature the best ideas in a future episode.

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SPEAKER_02:

Today on the Ever Onward Podcast, we have Michael Ballantyne. Michael is a long, longtime friend. He is absolutely one of the pillars of our community here in the Treasure Valley. He is literally involved in every nonprofit and effort that is making this place great and has made it great for a long time. He's a seventh generation Idahoan. Mike has been the managing partner of TOK Commercial, which is the largest commercial real estate brokerage and property management company in Treasure Valley, now regionally. He's been that for the last 20 years. He is the go-to for all things that has to do with commercial real estate in Idaho, and especially here in the Treasure Valley, and most importantly, an incredible friend, uh philanthropist, uh carrying on the heritage of his parents. I'm really excited to have him on today, uh, Michael Ballantine. Michael Ballantyne. This is gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

We've been trying to get you on forever.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm as busy as you are. You're a tough, you're a tough person in the book here. Well, you have more m many more fascinating people, I think, that uh go to the top of the list.

SPEAKER_02:

I uh I there's a few people that come on and they need to like prep a little bit with you. I don't.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's gonna be fun. Because my mother said I've mastered half the art of conversation.

SPEAKER_02:

So uh we were just in DC together. Yeah. And between you and I telling stories. Yeah. We get a few eye rolls and it makes for a great dinner. Yeah. Uh it goes by quickly. I'm sure this will go by quickly. But hey, uh, I've known you for a long time. I think you're uh I'm not just blowing smoke here. You've got to be one of the most, the most rep, you know, you look in the real estate world, you're the go-to, uh reputation. Thank you. Um you're involved in the chamber and every other. I'm thinking St. Al's. I mean, I just off the top of my head, all the different things you've done over the years. Yeah, there's a lot of people that talk about giving back, and then there's Mike Ballantyne who does, right? So there's a lot of things to talk about today. But um, for those who don't know you as well as I do, I mean, this is uh this Idaho thing means a lot to you, and you've got stories that go back. I mean, just from DC last week, we were talking about things. So tell me a little bit about growing up here.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, so uh my family's been here seven generations now, since 1863. Came from Scotland.

SPEAKER_02:

That's longer than uh old uh Brad.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, Brad and I are distant relatives, actually. So we our families came from the same area and married again.

SPEAKER_01:

I used to hate that when we were in the campaign, though, because here I was going up against him.

SPEAKER_02:

We'd be up in Moscow, right? You were at the University of Idaho giving a speech, and one of my favorite things he'd say, Well, you know Genesee right down the road. Well, my great grand aunt Marthaunt Martha planted the first lilac butch there, and it's still there if you go into town, and I'm like, oh man.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, their family take all the steam. This had a huge impact in Idaho, so yeah, for sure. But uh yeah, born and raised here, and um uh I'm actually adopted. My parents adopted six kids, all from birth from all over the Pacific Northwest and uh Western Canada, and uh had a great upbringing. My dad was a broker and developer, um, a reformed dairy farmer. Um my grandfather was a reformed dairy farmer and also a broker and developer. So I grew up in the back of my dad's old travel hall when he was selling farms and ranches, and he developed a lot of stuff around Cascade Lake, and and uh so it was a fun life, you know. It was like uh it was my my mom was gonna write a book once uh called Champagne and Hot Dogs because uh our family was, you know, my dad'd be doing a million-dollar deal over here, and my mom would be cutting hot dogs in the craft macaroni and cheese to feed all these kids, and you know, so uh spent some time in DC working for USAID as a contractor, actually, in Latin America and Africa primarily, the former Soviet bloc. It was fantastic. US Day USA ID was an amazing organization, it's a tragedy, it's no longer around. But um, and uh it was time to come back, so came back and tried to figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up. I'm still trying to figure it out. But got into real estate and been doing that ever since, and lucky enough to land at T O K and we've had a wild ride. It's been really fun.

SPEAKER_02:

You guys are you guys are the go-to. Um, what what you're the you've been the managing partner for a long time.

SPEAKER_00:

For a while, yeah. Yeah. Um, I think since 2005. Yeah, I was gonna say it's got yeah, 20 years. With my killer and then uh and then solo after that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey, uh, I didn't know you were adopted.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, my parents are my dad's passed, but my parents were amazing human beings and adopted six kids all from birth. Um my mother was a high school girl who got in trouble, and I was likely a booth baby. That was why I co-chaired that campaign to build a new booth home on Emerald, uh the new Salvation Army facility.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, talk a lot. Well, you said a lot right there, but um adoption's near and dear to us. Two of our children are adopted, and it's like an absolute miracle. We love we love talking about it. It's just it's uh one of the coolest things we've ever done. But um the booth house was a big deal. I want to talk about I mean the problem with today is we're gonna be able to talk about it. I mean this was a big thing, and you led that campaign.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I co-chaired that with Jennifer Delgard, who's Tom Nicholson's daughter, amazing human being. And um, you know, I went and did the tour. Eric Bolinder asked me to go out and take a look and did the tour, and then they get you in a corner and they always ask you for cash. And and buddy asked me to chair the campaign, and originally it was a seven and a half million dollar campaign, and it ended up being a ten million dollar campaign. But that home had been there forever. Um women from all over the United States had gone and had children there. So um, high school girls had got in trouble, so to speak. Um, but the the last campaign was in 1968, and J.R. Simplot shared that campaign. So facility was little, a little run down and in the wrong location. It was in the north end. So we built a new facility, Salvation Army Service Center on uh Emerald near Central District Health, near St. Alphonsus, near the mall. All amendees and services, that type of thing. So it was it was a uh it was a big campaign, took about five years, but it was fantastic. And uh they actually have a school there called Cardinal Academy. Yeah, um, and the girls and boys, the fathers can actually go there as well, and they can stay until they graduate. They don't have to go back once they've had the child. So it's a great program.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a beautiful building. Yeah, yeah, really nice to be able to do that. Talking about change. How's it been? It's been probably I don't know how many years ago you open.

SPEAKER_00:

I think we finished in well, we started in 2015. I think we finished 2020.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so what have the results been like?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's been good. I haven't been as involved. Um I don't serve on the board or anything like that, but I think they were able to consolidate a lot of services, move off of State Street, move out of the North End, uh, be in a real highly highly visible location on the bus line, uh, more able to serve uh folks. But I think it's been great. So um but Salvation Army does great work. They do the Lord's work, it's a fantastic organization.

SPEAKER_02:

That's great. Well, thanks for thanks for bringing that up. I think again, there's gonna be so many things to talk about today, but but your philanthropic kind of heart, does that come from your parents?

SPEAKER_00:

Um yeah, my parents were super involved. Um my dad retired early, he did really well, and uh uh it was it was the the oil shock in the the 80s and and 18% interest rates, and he's just like, why am I doing that? So I'm gonna go down to BSU and paint watercolors. And he started the K Kids program and uh um planted trees all over the valley. In fact, our house we had five acres, three of those acres were a tree farm, so they could plant trees at elementary schools because the school districts couldn't afford trees, right? So so you know, I kind of grew up at the uh north end of the shovel helping in the community, and my parents really preached that giving back to whom much is given, much is expected, right?

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, so were were they raised that way too?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I mean I think that's one thing that makes Boise great. You know, I think there are a lot of people that were raised that way, and I think we we emphasize it at T O K. In fact, one we have 33 partners now, um and it's one thing that makes our model a lot different. And uh, you know, we're in seven we have seven offices, 33 partners. We're in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Utah. But the offices are only in Idaho and Washington right now. But um but we have certain criteria like for a broker to become a partner and it's production and time with the company and and designations, getting additional education and training. But one of the criteria is they have to prove that they're involved in the fabric of the community that they get back. Um, you know, we we benefit from growth, as do you, right? And uh growth is great, but if you're not uh working hard to protect what makes Boise an amazing place, um you're gonna lose what makes this place special. And I want this, I want my grandkids and great-grandkids and others to live here and love it as much as I do. I love this town. Yeah, that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's great. So let's talk a little bit about T OK. So when you come in um uh 20 years ago, you believe that, Mike? Yeah. I'm old.

SPEAKER_00:

That's Tommy.

SPEAKER_02:

Old. You've been the managing partner for 20 years ago. Yeah, I was gonna say, as long as I've kind of known you, you've been the managing partner. But um talk about uh riding that ride. Because I think 20 years ago you didn't have offices all over. No, we just have to do that. So you've scaled you've scaled a lot. Yeah, we were much smaller. Just been dominant kind of here in this market. What what is uh what has it been like to grow the business? And then talk a little bit. Uh one of the things that I'm sure everyone that sees you on this podcast want to know is hey, what's it been like with growth? What are you seeing? What's going on out there? But that's a lot to cover, but start with just the business.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, T O K, I mean it was originally started by three guys Thornton Oliver and and later Mike Keller and uh Tim Thorn and Peter Oliver started the firm, CBRE guys that came to Boise providing quality third-party brokerage and management. There just wasn't that in our market. And uh and it's just been an amazing ride. We have a fantastic team, incredible brokers. Um, our market share is is stupid. I think in every market except uh inland northwest, you know, our market share is better than a third. Um and that's un unheard of. You go to any other market, and maybe the dominant player will be 12 to 15 percent market share. So and that's with a lot of big nationals coming in the market. So um, we've been really lucky. And I think our our model is different. We um we believe in ownership, we um we uh celebrate our successes and really raise up at typical brokerage. The brokers are these rock star, you know, professional athletes, and everybody else's sort of job is to make them look good. And we don't play that way, you know. I don't care if you're a maintenance person, a day porter, a support person, the receptionist, what you get. We spend as much time lifting them up as we do the brokers. And I mean, we had a deal in 2020 2021 was our 30-year anniversary, and we had everybody in my backyard, and we had uh everybody got three envelopes. The first envelope was uh 30 hours of PTO, the second envelope was three hundred dollars cash, ten thirty ten dollar bills thirty years, right? And the final envelope was a travel voucher for three thousand dollars anywhere in the world, right? Because those people had done that, they they were the reason we were so successful. And I don't care we had people that had been there two weeks that got a trip, right? So we try to really celebrate our people, take care of our people, recognize um uh people create success. Our biggest challenge is growth, you know, in that I think growth for growth's sake is not healthy, but growth to create opportunity for your people is really important for your clients and customers, well said, and for your people, right? And so so we really want, you know, the the the thing I hate is when we do before we came on the podcast, we're talking about people leaving, right? And the thing I hate is where someone says, Hey, I have to leave because my supervisor would have to die or quit for me to get a promotion. And so we we do a couple things. We really look for situational leadership opportunities. Hey, we're gonna roll out this new software, we'd like you to lead that, you know. And it may not be a supervisor type position, but giving them a chance and opportunity.

SPEAKER_02:

It's super rewarding too when you see that happen. And it happens organically with people that are committed and then they grow into something. It's there's nothing better than that.

SPEAKER_00:

You have leaders by position and you have leaders by personality. And there are we have a ton of leaders who are not on the leadership team, but they are leaders by by personality or or by the type of human being that they are. The other thing is is um is growth through um, you know, just natural organic growth. And so that's either in cr in in uh service lines, like we now have appraisal evaluation company, we purchase Mountain States appraisal. We're partners with Joe Corlett, he's an amazing human, and uh and most big brokerage houses have uh uh appraisal company. We bought Intermountain property services, we provide um, in addition to property management, a lot of property services for our clients, um, and that's a big piece of our business. So that allows more opportunity for leadership, that type of thing. So it's uh growth and service lines, and then of course geographic growth. So, you know, we just opened in June our Spokane office, and you know, I think we've got 150 to 175 people, and and uh so so that gives people an opportunity to to to uh move up within the organization, that type of thing, because of additional responsibilities, but it also is really good for our client. We you know, most of our 50% of our transactions are done with folks from out of town who are coming to Boise, buying property in Boise, that type of thing. And one of their first questions is where else should I be going? And you know, Idole Falls, Twin Falls, Cordelaine, Spokane, uh, Oregon, Tri-Cities, you know, I call them lifestyle markets. You know, we our model is a little different in that we um we don't want to be the biggest, we don't want to sell more widgets than anybody else. We um we want to be the best. And one of our deals that really sets us apart is this research model that we have where we don't we don't participate with CoStar and LoopNet and all that stuff. We build our own database. We go in right now, we're in Spokane building the database, we use the county information, city information, all the other resources. We we track 125 million square feet in the markets that we well, it's okay. It's our own proprietary. We have this brilliant guy, Josh Paul, who built this software, and it is incredible. It's built on the on the SQL Server. So if I tell you the market, um, you know, the industrial market is 5.1% vacant, it is literally 5.1. It's not a sampling or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02:

It's the actual Well I talk a little bit for those listening. Like those other those other um databases are national, yeah, and they rely a lot of on self-reporting, right? Right. And they're terrible.

SPEAKER_00:

You're lucky if they're 70% accurate in Boise, and you get into smaller markets, they're not even closed.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, sometimes if they're taken as gospel, too, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. By a lot of people. And they're in Idaho's non-disclosure state. So they'll literally see a recorded deed of trust for a million dollars and say, well, that's sold for a million dollars. Well, that was just the loan. Yeah. That wasn't the actual purchase price. But we love those markets. We call them lifestyle markets. If it's on the cover of Mountain Biking Magazine or Outside Magazine, it's probably a market we want to be in. Boise and Spokane will probably be the biggest markets we ever go into because you have to be able to get your arms all the way around the market. And in a Seattle or an LA, you can't get every building, every transaction tracked. So that gives us a huge competitive advantage. And you're looking at high growth markets. So you're in high growth markets where there's not a lot of national competitors, right? Where you've got better data than anybody else, and it it leads to success. And then that that flywheel of property management and brokerage feeding each other, and you sell a building and you turn over to property management. But at the end of the day, it's all about taking really good care of your clients. You know that, and you do a great job with that.

SPEAKER_02:

It's all that matters, right? Yeah. Every time someone says that reminds me of a story I was uh, you know, the bodybuilding.coms guy guy. Okay. Yeah. And I remember Ryan giving talk to the it was a it wasn't the chamber, but it was a big event. There had to be like 300 people there. And I was sitting at one of the tables up front, and I'd never heard him. I knew him, and he's a great guy. Like you get around those two guys. Yeah, high energy. High energy. And and you know, it's one of those things where it's like, who made this work? And then you get to know him, you're like, okay, I get it now. Yeah. Anyway, he he gets up front and he's giving a talk, a formal talk to all these people. And um, he's talking about the his his success and the reason he had success. And he gets to customers and repeat customers and taking care of them. And I'll never forget, I was sitting at a table with the mayor of Meridian and a bunch of dignitaries up front, and he says, Hey, at bodybuilding.com, we don't just take care of our customers, we dry hump them.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, we don't do that for our clients.

SPEAKER_01:

Seriously, like it was like it was like one of the few times in my life I look around the table like, okay, is everyone gonna laugh? Interesting terminology. What are they gonna do?

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

But in his vernacular and how he's doing it, but I've always like in internally in our company, we'll say, You remember what Ryan DeLuca said about taking care of people? Right. But his point, it was a very vivid way of remembering it's all it's all about repeat business. Yeah, if you've thought about your repeat business over your career in real estate.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, we are so lucky. Peter Ulver, you know, who's a great broker, he calls it blocking and tackling. It's just doing the right thing every day, calling your clients back. You know, nothing is more frustrating than if I get a call from somebody who says, I've been trying to get a hold of this broker for three days. I just want to just drive crazy. That's the blocking and tackling. It's not your latest technology and and uh podcasts or anything like that. It's just blocking and tackling, it's just taking care of your clients and and being a good idea.

SPEAKER_02:

Is there anything more irritating than that too? I've had that happen a couple times where it's like, hey, you know, we had you know, it's business, right? Yeah, it's it's business, it's looking for a place to land. Hey, I I can't get a hold of your guy. I know you can't get a hold of the guy. Yeah, I know you just go through the roof, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Everybody has stuff going on and we're all super busy, and and sometimes it happens, you know, you're out of cell phone range, you're hunting, or whatever. And but it's that you know, overcommunication is the key, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. Uh let's switch to growth. Wow. Yeah. We've been riding the tiger, right? So we've been lucky. We're lucky, right? Yeah, and you know, we're in so many markets, and there is no market like Boise. I mean, it is by far and away our best market, and we're in some great markets, but it is it is crazy good.

SPEAKER_02:

It's not slowing down. I want to get into that with you. And kind of uh it is interesting. I spent two at least two days, what did it say, Thursday, two days this week in significant conversations about people that are just kind of tired of it. Oh yeah. Growth fatigue is a real deal. So back in the day when we did Eighth Main and we do these projects, and everyone's oh great, you know, you're bringing top golf, or you're filling the hole, and you're those days are over, man. They they don't want to see until you get to the other side.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, if I had to take one or the other, I mean I lived here in the 80s, yeah, and it was last guy out shut out the lights. I mean, Boise was dying, and Boise looked like a war zone downtown Call Yours magazine, had that famous article, Boise the only city to dismantle itself. We had torn down all these buildings.

SPEAKER_02:

I think Dirk Kemcourt Chem Thorne, I've been around him a little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

He calls it Little Beirut. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it was uh it was terrible, but we were planning for the future. And but kids would graduate high school, they go away to college and they want to come back, you know, and I want to create a community where people want to come back to.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you remember that's all we talked about the early 2000s, even all anyone talked about, every board we were on is how do we keep our kids here? How do we get wages? How do how do we how do we stop them from going away to school? How do we stop, you know? And you did a really good job of it talking about it. Well, and you think about, you know, I I wasn't here, I got here in the 90s, but you look at you look at those early days of Custra and what Boise State became and kind of went on and the oh yeah and and now all of a sudden, okay, Boise State is not you know your kids don't go away, they go to Boise State. Yeah, big deal keeping them here. You look at CWI, yeah, that spin-off and what Gordon's doing. So you look at educationally what's going on. There was always the outdoors. Right. There was always the arts. You think of Shakespeare and Morrison Center, and so so there was all these elements that were great. Yeah. But then what happened was all of a sudden you had wages, you had jobs, it was discovered. So it's what we all wanted.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And it happened. But I think you know, Boise in the 70s was growing like crazy. It was all those fortune 50 companies. I mean, there was an article that said Boise had more millionaires per capita than anywhere in the country back in the 70s. And you know, you had Morrison Knudsen and Orwita and Simplot and HP and Albertsons and all these Boise Cast came out these amazing companies.

SPEAKER_02:

You think about Morrison Knudson, the largest construction company in the world was centered here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You had HP going crazy. Yeah, their largest operation outside. Boise.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but but uh part of our growth goes back to those guys who, you know, the guys in Morrison Knutsen, they lived all over the world. Yeah. And they're like, well, why don't we have a world-class performing arts center? Yeah. Why don't we have a world uh world-class football team? You know, white and Shakespeare and the Morrison Center and all these incredible parks. I mean, those go back to the 1800s where people were thinking about how do I make this a better place? I mean, there are some great photos, if you get a chance, in at uh Boise City, Boise City Department of Art and History, the Idaho uh Historical Society of this valley. This was ugly. Yeah it was so ugly. And they made paradise out of out of the desert. This is a high mountain desert.

SPEAKER_02:

Very much the Simplot family, the Albertson family. When you think about the heritage here, oh yeah. Absolutely. And and and those roots, that fabric, is what made the the growth possible, the keeping your kids here, the wages possible. So that was always the beautiful part of this, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. But I mean, here's a great so the where the village is today, okay, that was Harry Morrison's uh stables where he kept his huge draft horses and his plows, what they call blades, to cut all the canals that created the irrigation system that allowed us to grow initially through agribusiness, right? In fact, when they were excavating for the village, they kept finding these giant horseshoes, right? And they even found off the office draft horses and nails and that type of stuff. So yeah, it's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02:

But now it's discovered. We and listen, I don't sometimes on this podcast we talk about the the people that have come here from outside um that over the last 10 years. There is a big time anti-growth sediment. I think I think California gets a bad name here, but yeah, they they earn it. Yeah. Because in every hearing I'm in, it's largely Californians that have been here the last three or four years saying, hey, stop this thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. But I'll tell you what, I remember standing on the beach at Cascade Lake as a kid, and there was a guy who was an executive at HP who had come and when HP first came, and it was the 80s. It'd been he'd been here about 10 years, and he was like, Oh, we gotta shut the door. We cannot let these people in. And my dad's like, somebody let you in, somebody let us in, you know, in 1863, you know. Probably not, they weren't probably real happy about us coming. So, so there is that. I just I I don't have any problem with people coming as long as they share our values and they want to keep Boise what makes Boise special, right? But but the biggest issue we have is a strain on our services, right? Yeah. And education and roads and that type of stuff. I was talking to a guy who sold hot tubs, and he's like, I was like, how's it going? He's like, Oh my gosh, I just had the best year of my life. It's crazy. And in the next sentence, he's talking about how terrible growth is. Well, all those hot tubs are being sold to houses that people are buying that are moving from other places, so you can't have it both ways, but it is incumbent upon him and you and me to make sure that this city grows properly or this valley grows properly.

SPEAKER_02:

So what are the what are some of those elements? What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_00:

We need to get a bypass south of town, I've heard. I heard somebody is leading that effort, you know, that's really important. Yeah, I mean, I mean it's transportation, it's education. We've got to be.

SPEAKER_02:

And let's talk about micron. No, none of no one loves the that story better. Like we didn't mention that either. Did you hear Micron, born and bred here?

SPEAKER_00:

Basement of a dentist's office at Northview and Cole Road.

SPEAKER_02:

And now it's fifty billion dollars being spent here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

When they announced the first FAB, it was 15 billion. Right. I went back and looked, 10 years of building permits through the city of Boise was 10 billion. So so I mean, we're talking 50 years of value in just building permit. And it's a it's an odd way to measure it. But if the impact is true, is there so um infrastructure power? You talk about power.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Lisa Grove talks about having to get 40 years of infrastructure, power, infrastructure, power demand built in five years, right? And it's not just from people moving in, but it's from industry. And uh yeah, it's it's I mean, we've got we've got infrastructure issues, we've got education issues. We have to double down on education rather than cutting back on it. You know, we've got we've got transportation issues, uh, healthcare, right? You know, we have a healthcare system that works. Yeah. We're we're blessed to have two incredible health systems between St. Luke's and St. Alphonsus. And um, but you know, you you St. Alphonsus actually has another hospital in their system, St. Agnes and Fresno, and it is day and night between what we deal with in Boise or Nampa or Ontario Break Your City and what they're dealing with. Well, she at the end, she they they put her over that. Well, they they added because St. Alphonse is so successful, they said, well, let's just, you know, Idaho and Oregon are right next to California. Let's just add St. Agnes to this health system. And um, and those people are incredible people at St. Agnes. They're doing the Lord's work. But Fresno and California in general are they're struggling with health care. Highly regulated, their their payment model doesn't work. It just and and we still, you know, it it generally still works in Idaho. I mean, we we actually our our model is probably 30 years old compared to other places, but like I don't even know anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

I this weekend I went and visited a friend in the ER in downtown St. Louis. So I spent a significant portion of my life down there. Yeah, I'm not sure. I found out about you. But it was I was just there, there for a few hours. And um, first of all, the the weird thing for me, I don't I went in expecting to know some nurses.

SPEAKER_00:

And you didn't know anybody.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Liz, the unit clerk, ran up and gave me a hug. It was and I said, Liz, there's gotta be someone else here. You never go back, Tommy. There's no one. It's just changed. Like it's just changed. It's big, it's busy, it's I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's weird healthcare, the payment model doesn't work, the the delivery model doesn't work, uh technology isn't keeping up, you know, but yet we deliver the best healthcare in the world. We do. And that all goes back to those people that are working in the trenches. We have incredible doctors and nurses.

SPEAKER_02:

And how do we approach all that support people? I mean, I mean, you just you just rattled off the challenges.

SPEAKER_00:

It's engagement. I mean, it's being active in the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce, it's being active in BVEP, it's going to city council meetings, it's it's serving on commission. So your point is no one's gonna come solve these issues for us, right? That's what we've always done in this valley. We I love in a desert and we cut canals, right? Yeah, the New York Canal is called the New York Canal because we went to New York City and went to New York life and said, hey, we want to borrow this money so we can cut these canals and uh and irrigate the desert. We can do it. None of these challenges uh can't be overcome. For people out there all involved.

SPEAKER_02:

The one I want to get some sage wisdom from Michael Ballantyne. Well, you're in trouble. But if you're if you're if you're talking, there's people that listen to this for those because I think sitting back and waiting for the involvement we're talking about is there's a few really good things we want. Now let's get positive. I think Bobby Joe at the chamber is like She's a rock star.

SPEAKER_00:

Man, she is awesome. She's doing great things. And and I think that and and Claude Krause at BVEP, I mean, we we have we have probably the best economic development guy in the country. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And you got her and you got Sean Evans. We got really good business-led organizations. So if your company is not involved in those chambers and going to those events and being part of those, you think of the subcommittees, you think of the let you know, what they do to watch legislation and watch out for business, and it's just really well run.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and we're always innovative, you know, Leadership Boise, which is an incredible program. You go to the case. Talk about that a little bit. You go for a year, nine months, one day each month, and you spent um that day learning about the law enforcement in the valley or healthcare in the valley, or uh whatever the case may be. And that and it's it's participant run, it's really a powerful program. You have 40 or 50 people you go through with, you make lifelong friends. I go skiing every year with 11 other guys, and we've gone every year since 99, and almost all those guys run my leadership voice class.

SPEAKER_02:

But so it's designed because I I don't think enough people know about leadership voice. So leadership voice is designed for young professionals wanting to learn more about how to get into the it's a wonderful way to and most of the leading corporations in town send their future leaders.

SPEAKER_00:

Like this is a chance for them to learn about their community. And what happens is those people become engaged and then they end up, you know, serving on boards for the health systems and and the nonprofits, that type of thing. So so that's an amazing program. But that started in Boise, Idaho, I think like Skip Oppenheimer was like in the first class, right? Well, now every chamber in the nation has that program. They copied it from Boise, Idaho. We this is I don't know what it is, and it this is my personal philosophy is that you look at the West, and every western state, with I'd say the exception of Montana, has one major MSA and then some secondary M secondary markets, you know, Seattle, Salt Lake, Denver, Boise. Montana just has all these hundred fifty to 150,000 uh person markets. But so and Boise is the most geographically isolated MSA in the lower 48. And so nobody, there was this feeling always that nobody is going to do it for us. We have to do it for ourselves. Right, we're out in the middle of this desert by ourselves, this high mountain desert. And you look at places like Spokane and some of the challenges they're ham having with homelessness and crime and substance abuse and and other communities like up and down I-5. I think in a lot of cases they looked to the big city, like look to Seattle or look to salt, like help us with this. We didn't look to anybody, we just did ourselves. And that's always been the Idaho way, that's always been the Boise way, and we have to continue that and not lose it. And you can't, like you just said, sit back and watch others do it. If you're not actively involved in your community, whether you're teaching Sunday school, coaching soccer, serving on a nonprofit board, whatever, you are not giving back to your community. You have to do that if you're not going to be able to do that, Mike.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's just awesome. So chamber involvement in chambers is a big deal. And the the programs are rich, they're really good for especially for scaling an organization, yeah, to get your folks involved. So that's great. You you hit on the second one. Um, I get asked all the time, what should I be doing? I said, one, be part of a chamber and get involved. Second is a nonprofit board. What there's not a more wonderful way for an aspiring young professional that wants to make a difference in a community to just go volunteer on a board.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, our boys and girls club, we have like the best boys and girls club in the country, right? Crime, what does they say? Crime drops one-third uh in a community when you had a boys and girls club, but they need volunteer leaders there, you know, um, and uh boards of sports, you know, soccer, rush, whatever the case may be. Um, you know, the Shakespeare Festival. There's just so many, and they're they're dying for people to serve on these boards or serve on committees. Angela Taylor, have you had Angela on yet? I haven't. But we're trying.

SPEAKER_02:

She's kind of like she's like the Mike Ballantyne of my former women's MBA W.

SPEAKER_00:

She is like, yeah, I mean, she's she was captain of the Stanford women's basketball team when they won the national title and worked in the WBAT. She's amazing. Um but she's got her the Taylor Lead Foundation that her father and mother started, that she's taking statewide, helping young women uh go to college who are athletes. Her I win initiative, I mean, she's somebody, she is exactly what we're talking about. Someone who said, I I see a need, I'm gonna help fill that need, you know. So And you're one of those people, Tommy. I mean, you've done tons of things.

SPEAKER_02:

So if you if you think about commun so chambers, community boards, and then civic engagement. I do think I you look around our valley, um, what I like, we are to live in a partisan world where people want to rip each other's throats out. Yeah I mean it's I I'm sure there's been times in American history where it's been this bad, but I haven't delivered anymore. Yeah, probably the 1870s. But um but I think we live in a a very, very blue Boise, right? And then in a very, very red state. Yeah, oh yeah. And and and I think as you march across the valley between Boise, Garden City, Meridian, it gets redder, yeah. Yeah, it gets redder as you get out, as you then you then you get out to Caldwell. But I will say um across the political spectrum in and civic leadership, I am so proud of all those mayors. I mean, I think they're doing such a great job in city councils that are in tune with what's going on. We're really lucky.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, you and I had dinner with Senator Rish. Yeah. And you know, sitting next to Senator Rish was Mayor McLean, who's probably the most prominent Democrat in the state of Idaho right now, right? And uh you had the mayor, uh um Mayor Simmonson from Meridian and Mayor Kling from Nampa, and they're having robust, healthy discussion about how to solve the city.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's funny to sit and listen to them argue who's the fastest growing.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

They're debating statistics of like Aaron McLean.

SPEAKER_00:

We're all said that you and I were peacocking, and I was like, well, what about you guys talking about whose city is better? I mean, come on. So but that's it. It's civ it's civil discourse, civic engagement, right? It's going to city company.

SPEAKER_02:

And if you think about it, I think it what I like about politics at a local level is um it doesn't get partisan too often. I mean, you're take tackling huge issues together in things that matter, right? Whether it be education or infrastructure or homelessness or transportation. Yeah. Um they're just issues that hit home. It seems like it's where people still can get to come together and say, okay, how do we solve this problem?

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I feel like we have great agreement on this local level. Even wherever you are on the spectrum, our challenge is a little bit more on national, even on the state level, we struggle a little bit.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um so I guess the optimism that we're talking about is as many challenges we face, and we rattled those off in a hurry. You look equally, there are great people here. I'm I'm betting. I mean, I'm I'm not it's gonna be we're gonna have challenges for sure, but I think we've got a civic community, we've got a nonprofit community, and a business community that is really aligned on trying to solve problems. I and I just I'm betting on us.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I am too. I mean, I I we're in a renaissance. That's the best way to say it. I mean, this is a voicey renaissance, and it's I don't see it ending anytime soon. The only way it would end is if we lock the door and don't let anybody else in. You know, if we if we get so negative.

SPEAKER_02:

I've never I've never asked your take on housing.

SPEAKER_00:

Um what what what's your take on just housing prices and uh we could go from one of the ten most affordable communities in the in the United States to one of the ten least affordable in 20 years?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. What what what is like if Mike Ballantyne were king for a day and could come in and say, hey, here's the policies, here's what I would do at a state, local level to try to improve the cost of housing, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I mean, I think there's a few things. One is that um communities all community leaders all say we want affordable housing, but then when you talk about what affordable housing looks like, they don't want that, right? Yeah. It it is very bare bones and basic sometimes. And um and cities get concerned about that. They don't want to create slums, and I get that. So um so some of it is cities saying, okay, we're it's important to have affordable housing here, and it doesn't need to have X much open space and and X this and that and those other things that we're we're really trying to create that. Um our our housing stock, we've seen a ton of multifamily built in the last few years, and and people have been a little bit negative about that, and we've had some even some mayors say no more apartments in my town. Well, we historically have about eight percent of our housing stock in apartments and multifamily in a typical healthy market, is about 20%. You have to have that type of product. What we're not seeing built either is townhomes and condos and that type of stuff, and you have to have that type of product because not everybody can afford an 8,000 foot lot with a 1,500-foot home on it. Some people need a 900-square foot condo to start, right? You know? So so we've got to we've got to figure that out. Um and uh and cities sometimes don't want that. They this is too dense, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

You need more of everything.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you need more of everything. And you know, and part of our challenge has just been honestly just material prices. Things are expensive. I mean, you know, inflation has been pretty rampant, and we went through COVID and then the inflation after COVID. And um so that really gets solved, I think, through innovation and technology, you know, finding new ways or cheaper ways to build, whether it be Audovol and their modular construction.

SPEAKER_02:

Getting closer to where that makes sense here.

SPEAKER_00:

I remember I remember they talked about that. Uh um the guys at uh Trust Joyce talked about that in the 70s. They bought 40 acres of meridian to build a uh plant to where they could build modular housing to ship to Alaska during the oil boom.

SPEAKER_02:

When you go back, I think it was probably seven or eight years ago with Kayla Rook when I was talking to him about hey, well, why don't you do use any of this here? And he's like, oh no, we're not even close. We have to go to California where it's ridiculous, right? Right. Well, we're getting close to that. We think it's ridiculous. We're getting close now. I mean, he what a great guy he is. Oh my gosh. That guy's he's the best. Yeah. Um of the things that maybe you can speak to a little bit, it it is harder to do anything right now.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Getting harder all the time. So so in the middle, the one complaint, if it's a complaint that I would have, is is we believe supply and demand until we don't. And you can hear people that are your elected officials talk about, hey, we're our number one issue is housing price. We want to keep our kids here, we want to make it affordable. Great. They control the number. Yeah, they don't control the cost of a two by four for sure, but man, they make it hard. It is brutally hard to get away.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, look at ACHD's proposed ordinance where to double the impact fees, right? You're gonna have cheaper housing if your impact fee that you pay when you go pull a building permit is twice what it was uh last year.

SPEAKER_02:

And the process is just mind-numbing. Oh, yeah. To get through. I mean, uh Steve Martinez was on, and we were talking about just you know 20 years of home building on his part and what it was like to go do a little duplex. You know, because they also say but they want infill, they want infill, they want infill. Well, go try to go do a duplex in Meridian right now. Yeah. Good luck. Yeah. I mean, they've made it impossible. Almost impossible.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what that was my point.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, they don't want it. So I I I do think uh the housing thing, um that's in that's in a lot of our local leaders' control to try to free that up. I love what Spencer Cox is doing down in uh Utah. He he's he's one of his breaking down the barriers. Breaking down the barriers, and he's like, our goal is to have you know, it's 50,000 new starter home new starts. He's doing everything he can to just streamline stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Well he does a lot of stuff like that. He's got the whole disagree better uh program, right, with the governor of Colorado. And he he is uh he's a thought leader.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm his fanboy, man. I'm he's just I'm always texting him saying, Man, I just love what you just said. Yeah, he's he's a really good guy. Hey, um man, I I knew this would happen, Michael. I wait, I wait, what, two years to get you on and then an hour goes by so quick. Oh yeah. Oh well, wait two more years, yes. Say in two years. Can you talk about uh cycles in commercial real estate? Because a lot, I mean, that's what we do together is commercial real estate. Think about like retail's dead, right? Retail's dead, there's not gonna be retail, office was boom, and now office is I mean, office is dead, no one even wants to say the word. You got industrial, hotter than anything. Right. Talk about how you just have to sit back and be a little bit patient as these things.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, exactly. You have to have a long-term uh view. What did Mark Twain said? Uh rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, right? You know, everybody thought office was dead. I literally have a client right now who I've worked with for about six months, and when I started, they were three days in the week. Three days of the week, their employees had to be in office. And then they went three days a week in the office, and you got to swipe your badges so we know you're really in the office. Then it was four days and they just announced five days a week. Because companies are realizing culture, efficiency, training, all those things are better when the people are in the office. So, so office, you're watching office market tick away, get tighter. You know, we still have some corrections that are happening, or we've got some companies that have too much space that they're giving back and stuff like that. But you know, our developers have shown restraint in this market, and you know, most of the new office product is actually old product that's come back on the market with the exception of some really cool buildings along the freeway. Um but uh but so uh you know, our office market is healthy, our industrial market. We had nothing.

SPEAKER_02:

Talk about talk about industrial just because we'll start dabbling in that really quick. So I'm gonna get some free advice right now.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was 30 to 60,000 feet, it was a big building back in the day, and you know, our vacancy, our market was controlled by one developer, and our vacancy was low. And you know, you got a building out there near the airport that's 900,000 square feet, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

And Ron Van Auker was my neighbor for a lot of I'm sure he was cussing about how stupid all these other guys are.

SPEAKER_00:

But actually, that's a really key point in development. But one of the things that Clark uh at BVEP really focused on is how do we create a robust developer community? So when someone says, I want to come to this market, there's actually someone who can deliver quickly. You're one of those people. And so we have a really healthy develop development community. But you know, our our industrial markets are eight, nine percent vacant, but and that's all stuff over fifty or 150,000 feet. You get below 50,000 feet, there's no space. Yeah, it's less than it's sub-3% vacant. So so we'll work through it. We absorb a million to a million and a half square feet of industrial year. We'll continue to chip weight the rock pile.

SPEAKER_02:

We just built micron suppliers, just that alone, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean a year ago only 5% of our deals were micron suppliers, right? Now they're in on the industrial side, now it's about 20%. So, you know, that's gonna continue to grow. But we just got a little aggressive and overbuilt, and but that um that product is getting absorbed. And then retail, everybody said with retail, with Amazon, that no one's gonna do retail. And it has changed somewhat. Retail now either has to be a service that is Amazon proof. You can't get your hair cut on Amazon, right? So a salon, some of those type of things, or it has to be an experience, whether it be dining experience. That's why the village is so successful, that's why hopefully your project at 10 mile will be so successful, is that you have to create an experience. Why would I shop when I can just get it tomorrow from Amazon? Well, because the experience is amazing. And so that's why these old malls are getting demolished because it wasn't an experience.

SPEAKER_02:

What's gonna happen with our mall?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it'll change. I mean, it's still a great location. Yeah, I think it'll change. There'll probably be more mixed use. I bet you'll see more housing. I heard the Apple stores leaving. I don't know about that. I love Apple products. I don't know about that. I mean, the challenge is demographically the valley has shifted too. So the mall used to be the very center of the valley, and then it was Fairview and Eagle, and now it's literally 10 mile is the very center of the valley. And with Highway 16, you're gonna see more growth to the west, and that'll probably shift to 16 and 84. So as the valley, we can't grow to the east a little bit, Mayfield Springs, right? But you can't really grow too much to the east or the southeast because of the airport. So you're going to see a continued shift. And a lot of folks still view Boise as a one-store market and they want to be right in the middle of the market, right? And so that that's hard on them all.

SPEAKER_02:

Um And then we we hit multifamily. Um you guys uh you guys do some reporting on that. Uh it stopped, right? I mean, there's no new starts.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, what's interesting is so you know, uh we overbuilt that product too. We overbuilt industrial, we overbuilt multifamily, but that product is getting absorbed pretty well. The uh incentives from developers or owners are down 20%. Um vacancy, I think, right now, is 94%. So it's pretty healthy. Um what we're seeing a lot is activity from multifamily developers looking for sites because by the time they get the site entitled and built, it's going to be 27, 28. Then we're out of it. And we're we're at we're through that. Given current absorption cycles, um, you want to be coming out of the ground in night in 2027 or 2028. So it's it's just a little bit of an oversupply. Hey, um, because we're down to it. Um, well, let me just say one more thing. It does help affordability when we have too much product, supply and demand, right? So uh owners are given free me free rent or rent concessions.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, uh sometimes I sit and listen to parks and I'm like, just look at your current market, that's how it works. So that's why we need more duplexes. We need more condos, we need more starter homes. We it it just, you know, because look at even the rental market, the pressure eased off as soon as we had supply. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00:

We went through that period post-COVID 2021 to now where you know things were ridiculous. I mean, 2021 was stupid. Yeah right. And because we had basically about 18 to 20 months of pent-up growth when nothing had happened and that all popped in 2021, that we don't want that, right? What we want is what we're seeing today, which is healthy, balanced, steady growth, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Hey, uh what what uh how old are you?

SPEAKER_00:

I was told there'd be no personal questions. I'm 58.

SPEAKER_02:

So we're the same, what are the same things?

SPEAKER_00:

I knew that. I thought you knew that.

SPEAKER_02:

I thought I thought I did. I you just look younger. Uh no, so 58. Um what what lessons do you give? I know you mentor a lot of people. What are your kind of kids that come into you and say, hey, Mike, I want to I want a career like yours. What are what are the few things you would tell anyone that came in?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, uh a couple things. One is education, right? There are some great opportunities like in commercial real estate, go get your CCIM, your SIR, continue your education. When you stop learning, you start dying, right? So continue to learn, whether it be uh situational learning where you can go listen to a speaker, go to kerosene, you know, whatever the case may be, go something like that and learn. I think that's really, really important. Read. You know, I try to read every day. Uh take some time for yourself, it's also good for your soul. And then get involved again, get involved with the community, right? People do business with people they know and trust, right? And if you're sitting next to somebody on a nonprofit board or on a task force and you get to know them, you're more likely to use them as your doctor or as your commercial real estate broker or as your property manager or as your developer, right? Dude, that is rich.

SPEAKER_02:

That's gonna be a clip right there. I don't know about that. That's gonna be a clip that's shared right there. That that's I mean, I couldn't agree anymore. I mean, well, you love it too. And but if you just I mean, that's a really concise way of saying, hey, here's and and they're pretty easy steps, right? I mean, it's it's not not setting artificial it's it's so strange to me that um where I've really seen it is I I'm able to help with mission 43 a lot. Yep, great organization. But you have these guys come out of the military that are studs. Right, right. And they get out in the and and and and they're like, oh man, and I think when they hear from the business community, like we never stop learning. We always, it's and they're like, oh, I can kind of just merge into this community of business leaders where everyone's all it's not like you ever arrive.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, that's another thing I found at Boise that's different. And I I've seen it when I was up and spoke hand that's really different. People come, you know, you get a phone call and say, Hey, Tommy Alquist said I should go have coffee with you. You're one of the people I should know on Boise, and you go have coffee with them, and they're great, and then you say, Hey, you know, you should know this guy. It uh there's a great book called The Go Giver. Yeah, it's that concept. That is Boise to a T. It is. That is not every community that we are in. Uh we go to some other communities and they are like, you know, what do you want from me? And they are really closed. And that's part of what makes Boise, I think, so successful. But I don't know about you. I love the the nonprofit side, the community side. I get more, you know, serving on St. Alphonse's board was uh during COVID, I was the chair of SARMAC. Uh and post-COVID, I was chair of the health system. I mean, that was more rewarding to me sometimes than than than work itself, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, and that the this eternal principle that like you go to serve others and you get down, whether that's a a day of service, a week of service, or five years on a board, I mean, you go to serve and you you look back at what did I give, and what you get is exponentially more than what you're so much more. And that that that loop never ends, right? I try to help you and you give me more back. Yeah, and and and you get back, it it builds a pretty rich life. Yeah. Oh, I think that's right. I mean, when you sit back and look at hey, of my my service, my time given to St. Als, the board you're on, you you'll say, I got way back more than I ever served. So so that's a I mean, that eternal, like, and it brings happiness.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, when I when I'm 90 years old, I'm not gonna remember how many Costco's I did, but I'll remember my time with St. Als or the Salvation Army or or BVEP or other organizations for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Man, I love you, man. You're a great friend. Thank you so much for coming on and all you do in the community. Yeah, thanks for having me. You're a great, great example to so many. Thank you. Thanks. All right, thanks, everybody.