Downtown Boise’s Grove Plaza redo should be complete in time for Alive After Five

Piece by piece, an expansion of Boise Centre, Idaho’s biggest convention venue, is wrapping up, and so is an overhaul of The Grove Plaza, which Boise Centre partially surrounds.

A concourse that will connect the original Boise Centre building on the Grove’s southwest side to the new Boise Centre East on the southeast side should be done by April 1, said Mary Michael Rodgers, spokeswoman for Greater Boise Auditorium District, which owns the venue.

That will allow Capital City Development Corporation, the urban renewal agency that owns The Grove, to finish upgrades to the adjoining plaza. That work should be done in time for the first Alive After Five event June 7. Last year, with work on Boise Centre and The Grove disrupting the area, Alive After Five moved to The Basque Block a few hundred feet east of The Grove.

This year, the weekly summer series of concerts and fun returns.

Construction on the east side of the original Boise Centre building, which will include a 4,000-square-foot “junior ballroom,” is scheduled to wrap up by Aug. 1.

Rodgers said Boise Centre has seen about a 30 percent uptick in conventions and local events since opening Boise Centre East in September. That’s about what the district expected, she said.

This story was originally published February 16, 2017 at 2:21 PM with the headline "Downtown Boise’s Grove Plaza redo should be complete in time for Alive After Five."