A new stadium? Shopping? Outdoor education center? Plans vary for Ada County fairgrounds
The future of the 247-acre Expo Idaho property in Garden City could include a new baseball stadium for the Boise Hawks, as well as a hotel, restaurants and shops.
But a committee charged with making recommendations to Ada County commissioners has come up with two other possible scenarios for the county-owned land at Chinden and Glenwood streets by the Boise River. It could become the home of an agricultural heritage center and outdoor education campus. Or it could be a mixed-use town center similar to The Village at Meridian, with both housing and shopping.
Or elements of all three plans could be incorporated into one big project.
The citizens committee met virtually Tuesday to review the three scenarios, contained in a draft recommendation report. The committee plans to finish its report later this month and present it to county commissioners in January.
Andrea Fogleman, a Garden City resident on the Expo Idaho Citizens Advisory Committee, praised the work of facilitator Ellen Nelson, who kept the conversations moving and came up with panel boards explaining each of the concepts.
“When we started this process, I had no idea how we were going to take so many diverse opinions and put them together,” Fogleman said. “It was like magic how Ellen came up with these three boards that have a little bit of all of us in them.”
The 17-member committee was created in November 2019 after Ada County commissioners voted to form an advisory group to study the potential best uses for the land. The group has been meeting since February.
The land houses the fairgrounds, which hosts the Western Idaho Fair each August; Les Bois Park, the former home of Idaho’s largest horse racing venue; Memorial Stadium, where the Hawks play; Lady Bird Park; and land along the Greenbelt.
Les Bois closed in 2016 after the death of “historical horse racing,” machines that allow people to gamble on recordings of horse races. Proceeds from those machines were needed to keep live horse racing going.
Ada County now plans to tear down the horse stalls and clean up the blighted areas. It also will repave parts of the area around Les Bois Park and make it so that people can better use it as a community space.
In August, Agon Sports, which owns the Hawks; its sister business, the Greenstone Properties development firm in Atlanta; and Ball Ventures Ahlquist, a Meridian developer, announced a proposal to develop the site. Their $400 million plan would include a stadium for the Hawks and professional soccer, multifamily and single-family homes, a hotel, office buildings, restaurants, stores and a parking deck. It would retain the grounds for the Western Idaho Fair.
No action was taken on the plan but it is part of what the committee considered.
Agon and Greenstone suffered a setback on Wednesday when the Hawks lost their status as an affiliated minor-league baseball team as Major League Baseball reduced the number of its low-level clubs. But the owners said the Hawks would carry on as an independent team in the rebranded Pioneer League, and plans to build a new stadium would continue too.
The committee identified six areas of emphasis for any development: natural spaces; Expo Idaho events; the Greenbelt; Lady Bird Park; roads and pathways; and structures and parking lots.
The report suggests that Ada County could continue to hold the Western Idaho Fair on the premises, retain the Boise Riverside RV Park on the northwest corner of the property, and consider moving some Ada County offices there. But the report also suggests the county consider other possible locations for the fair.
A cost analysis should be undertaken to evaluate the feasibility and cost of the preferred plans, and to develop a detailed site-use plan, the committee said.
The agricultural heritage center and outdoor education campus plan would emphasize updating and expanding the fairgrounds to host the 10-day fair each summer. It would enable year-round events to be held there, too. This plan could include a lifelong learning center for hands-on education, possibly using a community kitchen, archery range, horticultural areas and teaching gardens connected to the existing University of Idaho Extension Service campus.
The sports complex plan could include a replacement stadium for use by the Hawks and to host other events, along with additional grass fields for soccer and other sports. It could include a new hotel, retail shops and restaurants.
That plan also incorporates minor improvements to Expo Idaho buildings, and it proposes a nature area, and walking and biking trails. There could be an ecology area, natural space and outdoor classrooms, with opportunities for a river walk or boardwalk, a wetlands recharge area and a fish-casting pond.
The third plan would create a Garden City town center, emphasizing a mixture of housing, stores, restaurants, government offices and a central gathering space in a walkable, neighborhood-style development.
That plan would also include an upgrade to Expo Idaho buildings, along with a nature area and trails.
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
