Boise to buy vacant land for $1.5 million for affordable housing project
Boise will spend $1.5 million to buy a parcel of land adjacent to the Boise Town Square mall with the hopes of converting it into affordable housing.
Boise City Council members unanimously approved the move at a meeting Tuesday evening. City staff expect the purchase to close in July, according to a memo sent from deputy city attorney Kim Stretch to council members last week.
The parcel, which sits off North Cole Road and just south of West Emerald Street in West Boise, totals 1.644 square acres and is owned by Utah-based company AIMField. The Ada County Assessor’s office assessed the property at $895,200.
Though the parcel was originally listed at a sale price of more than $2.2 million, local officials began to explore a purchase after the price dropped to $1.6 million, according to Emilee Ayers, a spokesperson for the mayor. City staff then negotiated down another $100,000 to the final price.
This isn’t the first time the parcel has been floated as a home for affordable housing: A local developer sought to build a four-story “micro-unit development” for workforce or affordable housing on the site in 2021, though plans ultimately fell through.
To fund the purchase, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean said at Tuesday’s meeting, $1 million will come from money the city received as part of a federal Community Development Block Grant. The remaining $500,000 will come from “funds set aside in past budget years for housing affordability in the city of Boise,” McLean said.
With the City Council’s approval, city staff now has 45 days to conduct due diligence on the land before the sale closes.
In the wake of a city goal to build and preserve thousands of units worth of affordable housing to head off rising demand, large-scale affordable housing projects have increasingly benefitted from the weight of direct municipal support.
In 2019, the city bought land at the intersection of West Franklin Road and South Orchard Street in the Central Bench and, in partnership with a private developer, later unveiled The Franklin, a 205-unit complex containing more than 180 apartments reserved for those making less than 60% of Boise’s median income. The building opened in 2024.
Boise later bought a parcel off West State Street near the Greenbelt in 2020. By 2025, a developer had turned it into Wilson Station Apartments — a 102-apartment complex in which 97 units are reserved for residents with incomes below 80% of the Boise median.
The city has also injected affordable housing projects directly with cash.
Boise previously allocated $6.7 million to support nearly 200 affordable units in the Denton Street Apartments, a complex on the Bench that opened in 2025, and council members approved $10 million in March to help redevelop a longtime affordable housing complex on South Capitol Boulevard.
The City Council vote also comes amid heightened interest in land development near Boise Town Square: Last month, a California-based developer filed with the city to build more than 200 apartments on a plot off of North Cole Road and West Denton Street, just steps from the land Boise now seeks to buy.