A church wanted Armory site. A neighbor wanted something better. What happened
A Garden City church has the go-ahead to set up shop just east of downtown Boise on the former Armory site, despite the efforts of a neighbor.
In July 2024, Boise-based KM Engineering submitted an application on behalf of River House Ministries church. The goal is to have a church, a public-facing grassy area and a coffee shop located in the lobby.
But neighbors opposed the project at 801 E. Reserve St. because it had no housing and wasn’t, in their eyes, a true neighborhood activity center providing an amenity for the public.
Boise’s Planning and Zoning Commission approved the conditional use permit 4-3. But a neighbor, Javier Muriel Ocaña, appealed that decision in June. He argued that projects at the Idaho National Guard Armory site must have neighborhood-serving options and multiple uses.
“We’ve watched the graffiti, growing weeds, dying landscaping and deterioration of the historic structure for years,” Muriel Ocaña wrote in the appeal, about the neighbors’ feelings. “We recognize the need for a thoughtful, lasting solution that honors both the site’s legacy and its importance to the neighborhood.”
On Tuesday night, Boise’s City Council unanimously denied the appeal. The people who spoke in front of the council overwhelmingly supported the project.
“It brings new life to an existing building,” said Joel Ryman, who said he had worked with the church before.
It’s been a long road for the long-vacant, historic site near the Military Reserve. In 2022, years after another plan fell through, Utah-based Alpha Development Group submitted plans for over 200 apartment and town houses. A leader with the group, Bryce Baker, told the Idaho Statesman at the time that he wanted the community to feel connected and engaged with the former armory site.
In addition to housing, the group planned a parking structure and envisioned an open space for food trucks and music events.
By 2023, Alpha Development Group had submitted permits to include 3,000 square feet of retail space along with the hundreds of apartments.
Boise’s City Council allowed the development to go ahead, as long as Alpha Development Group made sure to protect the Armory building itself. But those plans were scrapped after the developer disagreed with its equity partner over how to move forward, according to previous Statesman reporting.
The church is the latest group hoping to revive the space. Its plans will come with a price, according to Elizabeth Koeckeritz with Givens Pursley, a Boise law firm. It will cost more than $1 million to make the building structurally sound before church representatives start on any interior improvements.
“There actually has been a lot of discussions about having a farmer’s market there on Saturday or having food trucks come occasionally,” Koeckeritz said. “They want to do that sort of thing and offer those sort of services and benefits to the neighborhood.”
