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Do any parts of Boise feel urban? By that I mean walkable, many shops, close buildings, culture, lively. Obviously it's not like SF or NY but is it like a giant suburb, or a small city?
If there are specific areas that feel urban, can you please name the neighborhood(s)?
No, Boise doesn't feel urban outside of a few blocks downtown. And even there it really isn't urban because that area lacks all the services you need, unlike a neighborhood in say San Francisco which has everything that you need close at hand (albeit not inexpensively). There's also pretty limited housing available right downtown.
Get outside of that main downtown core and there's no urban feel at all. Even a close in neighborhood like the North End consists of nearly all single family homes on decent sized lots with individual outdoor space for each home. Put the North End in San Francisco and you'd call it suburban sprawl.
I agree. There are a few downtown blocks that are urban, but very little as far as living quarters in that area. So if you are referring to the feel where you can live in an urban area and there are corner shops for groceries and everything right there, there really isn't any of that.
But if you are talking about an area where you can drive to and then spend the day in an urban downtown area on foot, then yes, downtown Boise has that.
But there is no neighborhood to name. There is "downtown" and there are neighborhoods that are not downtown. Downtown is almost purely commercial (outside of a rare condo or apartment building).
Boise has a great downtown, but as IdaD says, is pretty much only niche shopping, restaurants, and business. There aren't a lot of options for downtown residential living (though it's increasing), and it's still very small. I love it, but it's a very small urban oasis in a sea of non-distinct suburbia.
It seems like they have a lot of new developments and projects in the downtown area, so I could see it becoming a bit more urbanized over the next few years.
It's a small city where we used to joke that it looks and feels like a town because everyone is so friendly.
I do know that the Simplot grandchild formed a corporation decades ago to focus on developing the downtown area into a more urban core with an emphasis of bringing more foot traffic downtown by creating places for people to live. I can't remember the extent of the property line exactly but it includes the Grove Hotel, BoDo and I think it goes to the connector to one end and down to Broadway at the other end in an area by the Winco parking lot. Much of the development down there is due to them. I think their group was called Series 17 or something like that and they had an office in one of the older buildings in the BoDo area. It was the building on 8th St that had the Cafe Ole Mexican food place on the first floor. Not sure if it's still there or if they changed their name since or I don't remember it correctly. Their office used to be on the 2nd floor there.
They did a lot of projects like had changes made to the road installing that brick crosswalk pattern you see at intersections, so that the foot traffic path was more visible between walkable downtown areas like BoDo and old Boise and gave a certain aesthetic feel to downtown. Commissioned the artist who installed the blue river design running on the wall of the Grove Hotel with the circular glass art pieces and misters, brought BoDo, and I recall they wanted to do something about the downtown library to make it more attractive and accessible. I think they may be partly responsible for the Anne Frank memorial behind the library there with the foot bridge across the river.
Some of the other new downtown housing in my time there that I saw built were the Aspen Lofts, and on Front St. they built an affordable housing complex called Civic Plaza Apartments which is next to the new court house and across from Winco. And for years there was talk of the 'Boise Hole' downtown being developed into towering luxury living units but several projects fell through. So many so that rumors ran rampant that it had some kind of shamanic curse on the property. It's been several years since I've been back so I don't know if they built anything in the hole yet but last I heard it was finally going to be developed. It looks like it's going to be a more modest project of downtown condos. Does this look about right? link
Then if you include from The Boise Depot to the Capitol Building there is all the development around the BSU campus area. There are several quad complexes on and off campus constructed over the years for mainly student housing reasons and a whole row of regular apartment complexes along Ann Morrison park and then the neighborhood of homes across from campus. That area has the BSU campus and the park buffering it from the downtown areas but it's not more than a 15 minute jog to the capitol from there. Granted it's not nestled up to downtown's back door like the North End is but you can cross the yard and be there or take a $6 cab ride.
The "Boise Hole" was filled in with a nice new tower. There are several new apartment buildings being planned for downtown and a new condo building is under construction at 10th and Grove. There are also several new apartment buildings under construction on the other side of the river from the downtown core. Infill seems to be the rage in Boise these days. There are new projects currently under construction and three new high rise hotels are planned and two are supposed to begin construction later this year. I feel downtown is urban and has changed so much the past few years. We even have a Trader Joes smack dab in the center of downtown.
Here's a nice photo from the JUMP Facebook page. JUMP is under construction and Simplot is building a new highrise headquarters on this same lot.
It kind of also reminds me of that modern urban design apartment complex on 14th. I can't remember what it was called.
That new Simplot project is massive!
Last edited by Merrily Gather; 04-15-2015 at 07:44 PM..
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