Giant retail complex to change Boise’s core – BoDo opens Oct. 31 on 4 city blocks

The $60 million BoDo retail/entertainment/office district opens in eight days amid predictions it will reinvigorate Downtown Boise by luring hundreds of thousands of consumers to the city center to eat, shop and play.

BoDo officially opens Oct. 31 when the P.F. Chang’s China Bistro restaurant chain opens its 127th outlet and becomes the first of 12 new national and local retailers to open their doors at the four-block site formerly known as 8th Street Marketplace.

The project also will feature a new nine-screen Edwards theater with stadium seating for 1,900 movie-goers, national retail clothing chains like Ann Taylor Loft and Jos. A. Bank, an Office Depot office supply outlet, and a 186-room Hampton Inn Hotel, as well as smaller retailers making their first appearance in Boise.

Local and national observers believe the seven-acre BoDo project, which is patterned after similar developments in Boulder, Colo., Santa Barbara, Calif. and Bellevue, Wash., will trigger an explosion of activity in the Downtown area.

By Joe Estrella
The Idaho Statesman

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