Developers unveil new ‘vision’ for Downtown Meridian’s stalled Union 93 project
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- Ahlquist and The Pacific Cos. bought a stalled Downtown Meridian development in October.
- Plans remain in an early design phase with no formal submissions filed with the city.
- The vision emphasizes housing, office space, about 350 added parking spaces and a plaza.
It’s been 3½ years since bulldozers stopped moving at the stalled Union 93 site in downtown Meridian.
The development, once envisioned as a 350-apartment kick-starter for the downtown economy — but later the subject of millions of dollars in legal disputes — was bought by Meridian’s Ahlquist and Eagle’s The Pacific Cos. at a public auction in October.
The new owners promised to “reimagine” the project, but they’ve been hush-hush about what those plans could entail.
Until now. Under state law, a six-month cure period would have allowed the previous owner to try to buy back the foreclosed property. That ended Thursday. Developers are offering new insight into what residents could see sprout up across from Meridian City Hall — and when they could finally see dirt moving again.
Here’s what we know so far.
A new place to live, work and park in Downtown Meridian
The new developers seek to “cast a vision” that would change Meridian’s city center, said Pacific Cos. Development Manager Josh Evarts in an interview with the Idaho Statesman.
The important caveat? It’s still a vision. No plans have been submitted to the city for consideration, and the project is still in its very nascent design phase, Evarts said Friday.
But “high level,” he said, there are a few things developers know they want to prioritize. The first is housing.
“What we’re conveying to people is that the two podiums that exist there today are more than likely going to stay, and they will provide the foundation for a residential development,” Evarts said.
The podiums are two partially built parking-garage structures on the east side of the development, whose looming and unfinished nature earned the site the nickname Meridian’s “Boise Hole.”
Evarts said he anticipates several stories of residential development above what would become finished podium parking.
“We don’t know what the nature of that is going to be, whether it’s going to be an affordable-housing project, whether it will be market-rate apartments, or whether there will be condo purchase options,” he said.
The number of units also isn’t known. (Asked about any other housing types in a follow-up question over text, Evarts added that “Anything is possible.”)
He also envisions shops or restaurants “wrapping along” the bottom-floor parking of the new Union 93 residential buildings. As a reference point, he cited the Old Town Lofts development just north of City Hall off Meridian Road. That project, which Evarts and The Pacific Cos. pioneered in 2021, includes roughly 100 apartments, above ground-floor shops and restaurants in two four-story buildings.
Evarts said Pacific Cos. would head the residential development.
8-story office tower, hotel, parking? Ahlquist’s wheelhouse
The third building in the proposed development would need to be built from the ground up, Evarts said, and it could be the project’s tallest.
Sitting on the site’s west end, closest to city hall, Evarts said the building would have a roughly four-story parking garage, topped by an additional four to five stories of commercial office space.
Treasure Valley developer Tommy Ahlquist told the Statesman that his firm would head development of the office tower, as well as some retail development and a hotel. His company has built or helped build office-and-retail developments from City Center Plaza in Boise to Eagle View Landing along Interstate 84 in Meridian.
“We’re looking at a lot of office space,” Ahlquist said by phone. “That’s what we do.”
This project marks Ahlquist’s second big swing on a stalled city-center development, after the 18-story Eighth & Main tower that finally filled the “Boise Hole.” That site had been vacant for nearly 30 years, after a fire destroyed the preexisting building in 1987 and more than one proposed development in the early- and mid-2000s failed. Eighth & Main opened there to much fanfare in 2014.
“In many ways, because of the size of this site in relation to a downtown (area), this might be an even bigger deal,” he said. “The Boise Hole was a 20,000-square foot kind of postage stamp on the corner of a block downtown, and this is a big site with a lot of uses that’s been sitting for a long time.”
It’ll be “epic,” Ahlquist said.
Walkable and ready for possible future transit
Evarts said the development could add nearly 350 parking spaces to the city center, something he said city officials had raised as a priority. He said parking spaces in the office building could be used by office workers during the day, then convert to public parking in the evenings.
That would “support restaurants and downtown, you know, nightlife and activations and things that are going on in Meridian,” he said. “What we’ve heard from the downtown businesses, and certainly the city has been in concurrence, is that we’re providing a great solution to what has been some parking pressure in downtown.”
But beyond parking, one major focus of the original Union 93 proposal that would remain, Evarts said, is walkability.
“Some things that we’re maintaining from the original Union 93 project, the whole idea of public space … real gathering, meeting places,” he said. Plans include a plaza in front of the two residential buildings and walkways leading toward City Hall.
He added that the south side of the property borders the Union Pacific railroad, and developers want to be ready for the future possibility of passenger rail.
“One of the things that we’ve been working closely with the design team on is preparing the building in the south side of that project to support a light rail station,” he said. “We want to make sure that we have pre-planned for that ... and have the right infrastructure in place.”
Ahlquist echoed that outdoor spaces are a priority.
“We will really focus on ways to connect people and make it comfortable and pedestrian-friendly and beautiful, so you want to hang out and experience Idaho with your neighbors,” he said.
Timeline and next steps
According to Ahlquist, the developers’ next step is to meet with the city ahead of filing an application.
The application would kick off a city review process, culminating in a public hearing before the City Council, that Evarts said typically takes about 6 months to complete.
Evarts also noted that the developers are still finalizing an agreement to purchase a last piece of the Union 93 property, which was conceded to Okland Construction during legal proceedings.
If approved, the project would likely be built in phases. The earliest he said residents could expect to see dirt moving would be spring 2027.
This story was originally published April 12, 2026 at 4:00 AM.
