65-foot Ferris wheel? 16,000-gallon aquarium? Giant sports store coming to Boise area
Ever imagined a Ferris wheel inside a sporting goods store?
That is what may be coming to Meridian.
Scheels, a North Dakota company that operates 30 All Sports Stores in 13 states, announced Monday that it will build its first store in Idaho at Ten Mile Crossing in Meridian.
And it’s going to be big: 240,000 square feet. Besides a 65-foot-tall Ferris Wheel, the store will feature a 16,000-gallon saltwater aquarium with more than 600 fish, a wildlife mountain, and a candy shop, Scheels said.
There will be sports simulators and interactive arcade games. Idaho Scheels, as it will be known, will also have 85 specialty shops, with Idaho’s largest selection of sporting goods, fashion and footwear, the company said in a news release.
The store, which the company expects to open in spring 2024, would be staffed by more than 400 employees.
CEO Steve Scheel said his family company, founded in 1902, has been eyeing the Boise market for more than a decade. Ten Mile Crossing, located off Interstate 84 between Boise and Nampa, was the “best possible location” for the store, he said.
German immigrant Frederick A. Scheel, Steve Scheels’ great-great grandfather, founded the company from $300 he earned from his first harvest of 3 acres of potatoes. The money was used for a down payment on a small hardware store in Sabin, Minnesota.
Additional stores opened in surrounding communities, including Fargo, North Dakota, where the company’s corporate offices are now located. Sports lines were added as the company grew and that is now the focus of Scheels, an employee-owned company.
The nearest Scheels stores are located in Utah, Nevada and Montana. The company employs more than 8,000 workers.
This story was originally published November 1, 2021 at 4:54 PM.
