West Bench Capital Blog and Updates

February 2026 Updates

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 18:41:01 GMT

We are fully funded and on track to break ground soon!

We’ve been fairly quiet over the last few weeks, but progress has been made over the winter. There is plenty to report on, but first and foremost, the Arch St project has been fully funded! We are very excited to be focusing on progress with the actual build at this point, so we are very appreciative of everyone who has contributed and we look forward to all celebrating in both creating beautiful, functional and affordable housing for folks and generating profits for our partners at the same time.

What does it mean to be “fully funded,” and why should you care? Well, that means that we’ve raised all of the money we need to raise, at least according to our proforma, to leverage the equity we’ve built and build out the entire project. That doesn’t mean it will be quick, but it does mean that we can focus more time and energy towards actual progress on the ground.

At the end of November, we had the pleasure of meeting with our team of architects at Pivot North and getting down to the brass tacks of what type of materials we’d be using on the exteriors, placement of windows, paint colors, etc. It was a fruitful and exciting meeting. There are several different buildings on the site and each will have some slight variation, but the image at the header of this blog is just a sample of where we are heading.

We have submitted those plans to the city Design Review board and are waiting for their response. It’s likely we will get some basic feedback and need to make some small adjustments, but the entire team is confident that we are very close to having full approvals on the project.

So what’s coming up next? We have a civil engineering firm working on all of the utilities and roadway improvements to get us to the point where we can actually start moving dirt on the site. We are also working on securing a loan to fund the build and help us get through this initial phase. Assuming things go as planned, and they have so far, we will have horizontal construction underway sometime in quarter two or three.

In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to us with any questions.

Happy Investing!

Inside The Arch Street Capital Stack: How Everyday Investors Get in the Deal

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 10:54:40 GMT

Exactly how do investors profit in a syndication?

If you’ve been following our Arch Street project or exploring and learning about real estate syndications, you’ve probably heard the phrase “capital stack.”

It sounds like Wall Street jargon, but it’s really just a simple way of answering three questions:

Who’s putting in the money?
In what order do they get paid back?
Where does your return actually hit in that lineup?

In this post, I will walk you through that in plain English, using Arch Street as the backdrop, so you can see how everyday accredited investors join a Boise development like this without having to build it themselves.

The Basics

Picture the Arch Street site for a second: today it’s plans, approvals, drawings, dirt. The goal is to turn that into finished townhomes and a small multifamily building that real people live in.

To get from “dirt and drawings” to “doors and residents,” we stack together a few different types of money:

A construction loan from a bank or private lender.
Our own money as the sponsor team.
Investor capital from people like you.

All of that together is the capital stack .

The lender is at the bottom of the stack. They get a lien on the property and earn a set interest rate. They get paid back first once the project becomes profitable.

Equity—actual cash invested—comes next. Equity gets paid after the lender, but if the project performs well, equity shares in the upside. The equity is the money that we’ve all invested in the project PLUS the additional value we’ve all created. That’s the trade: more risk than the bank, more potential reward if things go to plan.

The three layers in Arch Street-type deals

Here’s how each of those layers look in real life.

First layer: the construction loan

This is usually the biggest dollar amount in the project. The lender funds a large portion of the total cost—land, horizontal work, vertical construction—based on a conservative view of value and rents. They’re not trying to swing for the fences. They want their money back with interest.

Second layer: our own capital

Next, the sponsor team (that’s us) puts in our own money. This is often called “GP capital” or “co-investment.” It matters because:

It proves we believe in the deal enough to risk our own dollars.
It aligns us with you; if the deal doesn’t perform, we feel it too.
It helps unlock better loan terms and confidence from everyone involved.

If a project doesn’t pencil for us on our own money, we don’t shop it to investors.

Third layer: investor equity (your lane)

The final piece of the stack is investor equity—the checks written by passive investors who want in on the project but don’t want to be the ones dealing with city planners and contractors.

As an investor, you become an owner in the project entity. You’re not personally signing on the construction debt, but you are true equity. That means real risk and real potential upside.

Where your dollars actually go

A question I hear a lot is, “Okay, but what is my money doing in there?”

In a ground-up project like Arch Street, investor equity typically helps cover:

Pre-development and entitlement – Surveys, engineering, architecture, city applications, fees, all the upfront work to turn “nice idea” into “approved project.”
Land and horizontal work – Final land costs, grading, utilities, road work, and getting the site build-ready.
Vertical construction – Framing, roofs, siding, interiors, common areas…all the sticks and bricks.
Reserves and contingency – Buffers for interest, surprises, and timing hiccups.

The lender doesn’t just drop a pile of cash on day one; they fund draws as we hit milestones. Equity is what gives the project the cushion and flexibility to keep moving and handle the pieces the bank won’t pay for upfront.

How investors typically get paid (in normal-people language)

Every offering has its own legal structure, but most syndications follow a similar logic.

Here’s the high-level picture of how investors are often compensated:

Investors may receive a preferred return —a target annualized return that is paid to investor equity before the sponsor participates in profits (assuming the project generates enough cash).
When the project is refinanced or sold, there’s a capital event where investors may receive their principal back and a share of the profits.
After investors receive what they’re due per the agreement, remaining profits are split between investors and the sponsor team according to a pre-defined percentage.

For Arch Street, all of the exact details—minimums, targeted returns, fees, the waterfall, the risk factors—live in the Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) and related documents, not in a blog post. That’s on purpose. You should always make decisions based on the formal documents, not marketing copy.

The big idea: as an investor, you should clearly see on paper how the money comes back to you and how the sponsor gets paid.

Why we like this model for Boise infill

So why bother with all this structure instead of just buying another single-family rental?

A syndication model makes sense for a project like Arch Street because:

It allows us to take down and build out a bigger, better-located infill site than most individual investors would want to take on alone.
It lets everyday accredited investors own a slice of multiple homes and units in a strong Boise location instead of tying everything to one door.
It creates alignment: lender, sponsor, and investors all have clearly defined roles and incentives.

Boise still has a real housing problem. We need more well-located, functional units in existing neighborhoods—not just sprawl on the edges. Projects like Arch Street are one way we can help solve that while also creating a path for investors to participate.

No guarantees, no magic. Just using the right tools to fund the right kind of project.

What it looks like to invest alongside us

If you’re curious what it would actually look like to join the Arch Street capital stack, the process is pretty straightforward:

We talk – You read pieces like this, then hop on a call or join a webinar where we walk through the project, the plan, and the risks in plain English.
We confirm fit – These offerings are typically limited to accredited investors under SEC rules. We make sure the deal type and time horizon match your goals.
You review the docs – You get the PPM, operating agreement, and subscription documents. This is the stuff you review with your CPA and attorney.
You commit and fund – If you decide to move forward, you sign, fund, and become an owner in the project entity.
We execute and report – Our job is to manage design, entitlement, construction, and lease-up, and to keep you updated along the way. When there’s a capital event, investors may receive distributions per the terms of the docs.

We treat everyone in the stack like a business partner. We win or lose together.

Want to see the Arch Street details?

This article is meant to explain the big picture. It is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. Any actual offering for Arch Street is made only through the confidential Private Placement Memorandum and related documents, which spell out all risks and terms in detail.

If you’d like to:

See how the capital stack is structured for Arch Street specifically, or
Talk through whether a Boise infill development belongs in your portfolio,

reach out and we’ll schedule a short, no-pressure conversation. Action beats analysis—but only when you understand what you’re investing in.

October 2025 Updates

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 18:53:11 GMT

City Council Rezone Approval

This month brings most likely our BIGGEST news and progress yet. Last month, we noted that the planning and zoning committee had approved of our plans and design, but we still had the hurdle of city council approval. Well, on October 14th, the city council approved of our rezone and plans for the site. Huge news for all of us here along with our investors as that hurdle does quite a few things for us.

Upon acquisition last summer, the property was zoned R-1C, you can see the highlights of what is allowed in R-1C here . Currently the city allows up to 12.4 units per acre in that designation. As is, that would allow us to build up to 17 units on the site.

One of the things that the GP team liked about this property from the start is that it’s surrounded by mixed use zoning and the city seemed to miss a couple parcels in this neighbourhood during the rezoning process in 2003. During due diligence, we met with Planning and Zoning along with our project manager several times to get a feel for the possibility of getting this parcel rezoned as mixed use. The city essentially told us from the start that they would support the project, and they’ve made good on that.

The parcel is now being officially rezoned to MX-1. This designation allows higher density with reasonable setback for the residential nature of the neighborhood. You can read more about the requirements here , but including a potential commercial use was a big part of the city’s support and our team has done that by providing a 9 unit multifamily building and providing live/work options for the townhomes on the north side of the lot facing Ustick.

What does this all mean for the project as a whole? It allows us to start working, legally and in earnest, on actually dividing the parcel in to 21 separate lots, one of which being for a 9 unit apartment building, creating instant equity for all of the investors involved in the project.

It is our hope that we will have the parcels officially divided and be moving dirt in the spring. There are certainly other hurdles to overcome, but as a team, we are making good progress and aren’t too far off from our original, optimistic timeline.

As usual, please feel free to reach out with any questions and let us know if you have any friends or family who might be interested in investing- we are getting close to being fully funded, so it’s likely we will close out the offer soon.

Happy Investing!

Arch St Summer Update

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 12:13:09 GMT

Planning and Zoning Approval and Fundraising Update

Summer has been productive on the Arch Street development. While there isn’t a lot of progress that could be made as we await rezoning and approval from the city and utilities, we have made very good progress with all of them along with some excellent progress raising funds and getting close to closing out investments on the project.

There was another push for fundraising as we approached our rezoning and we successfully raised nearly another half million dollars, which gave us a cushion and allowed us to pay off the existing lien on the land. In addition, we are having conversations with a handful of investors who may close out the remainder of the project. We are feeling good about the equity that has already been built in the project along with the funds that investors have contributed. Things are moving along nicely and we are currently on budget and generally on the original time frame we proposed.

The biggest (and most positive) news from the summer is that on Monday, August 4th, we got approval from Planning and Zoning for our rezone. While the approval came with a couple basic conditions, our team has already made those adjustments and we are working on getting final approval from city council, most likely in September.

Presuming we will sail through approval with city council, which is what we expect, we are continuing conversations with our general contractor, Perryman Construction, and hope to see some actual, physical work beginning over the winter this year.

With P&Z approval complete, we plan a final fundraising nudge early this fall in hopes of closing fundraising for this project completely. Feel free to let us know if you have any connections with someone who might be interested in some passive income on this project or if you want to discuss any of our other upcoming projects. We have a few in the pipeline that should provide equally excellent returns.

Happy Investing!

April Arch Street Update

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 15:11:22 GMT

April Arch Street Update: Re-zone, Applications and Design

There has been plenty of action behind the scenes for the Arch Street development. March and April have been filled with conversations with the City of Boise, Ada County and our development team regarding our proposed design along with all of the utilities and services that future owners and residents will have at their disposal.

As previously mentioned, we had our meeting with the design review board a few weeks ago and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The city has proven again that they are committed to creating higher density housing in order to address the affordability needs of people living and working in Boise.

The only meaningful pushback we received was from Ada County Highway District, who had concerns regarding the egress for trash collection trucks. Our amazing design team at Rodney Evans and Partners along with Pivot North have been working through those issues so we can get back with the design review board and assure them that those concerns have been addressed. We are currently working through a few different options and expect to have an update for them within the next couple of weeks.

Beyond the feedback we received regarding waste collection, there were other pieces of feedback that will have smaller impacts on the project. Fire will require that we install a hydrant at the entrance to the property, which should be relatively simple, given the previously planned improvements that will be made to the street, water supply and sidewalks.

The city also suggested some designated bicycle parking and storage, which we thought was a great idea, with Boise being such a bike and pedestrian friendly city. Many recent developments like Arch street have included community bike tools, compressors and spaces to store and work on bikes, which we are considering. Not only encouraging residents to bike and use more public transportation, but also to lessen the need for more asphalt and parking.

Although already planned, we did get some feedback regarding the importance of proper drainage, planting new trees and native plants, but also doing everything in our power to keep some of the larger, healthy trees on the lot. Boise being “The City Of Trees,” we want to do everything in our power to maintain the healthy trees that we already have. Not only because they provide shade and privacy, but it can be expensive to mitigate larger trees that are removed.

We should have some healthy progress over the next month or so and look forward to updating all of our partners in this project. As usual, please feel free to reach out if you have questions or just would like more information.

Happy Investing!

February Arch Street Update

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 01:31:43 GMT

February Arch Street Project Update

January has been a great month for Arch street- lots of progress and generally, we’ve been getting good news.

For one, the real estate market in Boise has been extremely competitive- our real estate team had 7 listings in January and all of them but one had multiple offers and we were able to either sell them or currently have them under contract for over the asking price. What does that have to do with the Arch Street development? It shows that the hunger and demand for housing in Boise is not waning in any way, even in the dead of winter.

As a matter of fact, as of this writing, there are only 7 properties in all of Boise with at least 2 bedrooms and 1300sf that are under $400K. None of them are new and mostly are at least cosmetic fixer uppers. For the type of property and homes with are building with Arch street, we will be able to fill an absolute need in the community.

With that being said, we had our neighborhood meeting last week. This is the last requirement before we submit our rezone application and typically there are some interesting conversations at these meetings, to say the least. As a matter of fact, I brought two of my kids and prepped them to pay attention to how adults handle stress, confrontations and uncomfortable questions.

We are happy to report that about a dozen neighbors showed up and, while I wouldn’t go as far as to say that we received a standing ovation, the feedback was mostly positive. There were several questions about site plans, density, parking and road improvements, but the overall feeling was that this project would be an improvement to the neighborhood and definitely an improvement to the existing, overgrown and muddy lot.

At the moment, we are completing our application for the rezone and finalizing the site plan and layouts of the units. We are working on creating a little more common space for each unit and maximizing the the square footage. We should have some concrete plans and be well on our way to a final plat by Spring. At the moment, this is a draft rendering of the site:

January Arch Street Update

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 23:39:18 GMT

An Update on Arch Street Project

Things are moving right along here with the project on Arch street. December was busy finalizing our platting and submitting our application for rezoning.

We have gone through five or six iterations for the platting of the project and the number and layouts of the units that we plan to build. As our application is submitted, we are currently at 32 units, though it is likely that we will reduce the total number by a few in order to create a little more greenspace and better functional living spaces for future residents and owners.

One of the biggest changes with our current design is that we’ve added a 10 unit multifamily building, which will create several potential exit opportunities. We could possibly hold it collectively as a for-rent product and depreciate it as we collect rents or sell it to another investor. There’s a possibility of condoizing the units and selling them individually platted as well.

As part of the re-zoning process, we will hold a neighborhood meeting at the end of January. All of the neighbors must be notified by mail, which is going out this week. The meeting isn’t for feedback, votes or permission of any kind, simply to inform neighbors of the project. As a side note, we have reached out to every property owner within a block and offered to meet and discuss the project with them individually.

Beyond that, we are about to pick up our fundraising and marketing efforts again. We are about ⅓ of the way to our goal and expect to have a few more investors jumping in over the next few weeks. We’ll be holding a few more webinars over the next few weeks and would love for you to send any friends or family who might be interested in the project to check those out.

We are happy to report that things are moving along smoothly thus far and we are on track with the schedule we have planned from the beginning. As always, please feel free to reach out at any time.

December Arch Street Update

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 14:59:30 GMT

Moving forward with Arch Street Project

November was another busy month for the Arch Street Development. Now that we have locked in with both an architecture firm and our landscape architect, things are really starting to take shape.

One of the biggest benefits of working with Pivot North, our architecture firm, is that they’ve got plenty of manpower to communicate regularly with us, but they also have plenty of experience with projects like ours all over Idaho. This means that they can save us time, money and energy by providing us with existing plans and elevations and we can pick and choose what we like from their archives and they can put together ideas for us based on that feedback. It makes turnaround times much quicker. Some of their existing designs that are heavily influencing our plans are as follows;

As Robert and I started this project, one of our goals was to honor the history and personality of the neighborhood. Not just west Boise, but Ustick itself. Many people may not know, but when Boise was in it’s infancy, Ustick was actually it’s own village and there. The regional railway even went right by the old township. To that end, we felt that a modern and angular design would not be appropriate here, we wanted to create structures with a more traditional feel, closer to a craftsman style with some natural elements built in. While the plans and elevations are still fluid, we are working on solidifying the designs in order to complete our application for a rezone with the city.

To that end, our landscape architect, Ben Semple with Rodney Evans and Partners, is leading that charge and speaking regularly with the city in order to put together that package. Based on our first two preliminary meetings with planning and zoning, our platting and design has gone through several iterations and is moving in the right direction. Some of the required setbacks and egress required by the city has pushed us to be more creative with the platting and actually allowed us to increase the number of units and create a little more greenspace too The challenge now is finding that balance between high quality livability and ensuring that we are still as profitable as possible. As you are likely aware, higher density doesn’t translate in to higher profits if the units aren’t desirable- and it’s of the utmost importance to us to make sure we are creating housing that is functional, affordable and increases the residents quality of life. Our current, and very much fluid, platting looks like this:

We are on track to have our application for rezone submitted in December and should have clear feedback from the city shortly. As usual, we will continue to communicate with all of those who have invested in the project and anyone else who is interested in the progress both through this blog and through individual inquiries as well.

From a fundraising perspective, between actual and verbal commitments, we are approximately half way to our goal and we have enough funding to take the project through entitlements. Of course, we’d love to completely build the project out and maximize returns for all investors. If you know of anyone interested in investing in this project, we’d love an introduction would be happy to answer any questions they may have.

Happy Holidays! We will see you all in 2025.