What’s being built on top of Boise’s JUMP? And how long will traffic be snarled?
If you’ve driven down Myrtle Street in downtown Boise lately, you might have noticed a hodgepodge of scaffolding and beams going up above the parking garage at Jack’s Urban Meeting Place, the community space at Simplot’s headquarters known by its acronym JUMP.
The nonprofit J.R. Simplot Foundation, which owns and funds JUMP, is installing a steel canopy over its rooftop “team slide” and five-story spiral slide that empties into a play area.
Soon, the beams should form a colorful, geometric structure.
Bethany Conte, special projects coordinator at JUMP, told the Idaho Statesman that the rainbow-like canopy will serve a practical purpose.
“During the summertime, the team slide often gets too hot because it’s just absorbing direct sunlight up there,” Conte said Tuesday by phone. “This canopy would allow us to open up that team slide. In previous summers, we would basically have to close it for all the summer and only open it during fall and spring. It will also provide shade for those standing in line to go down our five-story slide.”
JUMP is a 3-acre public park with an outdoor amphitheater, a structure to climb on, meeting spaces, various studios, free public Wi-Fi and a collection of vintage tractors and farm equipment on display. Fundraisers, concerts and other events are often hosted at the site.
Construction of the canopy is expected to close down three lanes of Myrtle Street between 13th and 9th streets from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday nights as a crane sets up shop on the left-hand side of the road those nights, according to the Idaho Transportation Department. The installation, which began in mid-January, is expected to wrap up in early March.
The nearby sidewalk should be closed only at night for the duration of the project, a roadwork advisory said.
Conte said the canopy, which has been in the works for a few years, is planned to have large sails in colors such as red, blue, orange, yellow and green. It’ll be nearly 60 feet tall.
“It’ll mostly just be steel,” Conte said. “And then there’ll be some fabric sheets that go over the top of it to allow that splash of color with some lights. So during the nighttime, we can also see that colorful pop.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2026 at 4:00 AM.
