Members of the Boise Design Review Committee put their seal of approval Wednesday on the Simplot family's plans for the landscape and main building structure of Jack's Urban Meeting Place in Downtown.

The city's Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to examine the project Oct. 1. Planning and Zoning approval would clear the way for the Simplot family to obtain a building permit for JUMP.

The building and surrounding landscape, located between Myrtle, Front, 11th and 9th streets, are planned as a memorial to Idaho agriculture giant J.R. Simplot, who died in 2008. The facility is envisioned as an event venue and museum featuring a tractor collection. It would also feature several studios for cooking, dance, martial arts and other classes.

Design Review Committee members' approval was not unconditional. They said they want architects to reconsider designs for canopies that would partially enclose several tractors on display around the JUMP grounds. In particular, they balked at a proposal for the use of corrugated fiberglass as the canopies' roofing material. Committee member Thomas Zabala worried the fiberglass would make the canopies look cheap and would detract from the sophistication of the main building.

"If you need to cover these things, I would like to see them appear to be in something more than the box they were delivered in," Zabala said.

Final approval of the canopies' design is not necessary for a permit on the main building, said Sarah Schafer, Boise's manager of design review and historic preservation. The canopies themselves will require a separate permit, Schafer said, which the Simplots can pursue in a subsequent design review and planning process.