Boise Towne Square is a mall in the western United States, located in Boise, Idaho. The largest retail complex in the state, it opened in 1988 after more than 20 years of planning, and features 150 stores, with Macy's (formerly The Bon Marché), JCPenney, Kohl's and Dillard's (added in 1998) as anchor stores. The mall also includes the first Apple Store in Idaho. Boise Towne Square is owned by the Chicago-based Brookfield Properties and is located near the junction of Interstate 84 and Interstate 184.
Brookfield Properties also operates an adjacent strip mall, Boise Towne Plaza, which is anchored by Nordstrom Rack and Old Navy. In addition, the mall comprises nine freestanding businesses on its property, including major retailers PetSmart and Pier 1 Imports.
History
Plans for mall in Boise
The idea for a large regional shopping mall for Boise had been in discussion during the 1960s and 1970s. The first major proposal came in 1973, when Karcher Mall developer Harry Daum attempted to purchase land, owned by Larry and Peg Ott, near the intersection of Cole and Franklin Roads in Boise. The Otts responded with a lawsuit to stop Daum from attempting the building a shopping mall on their property. In 1976, the Otts agreed not to protest developer Larry Leasure's efforts to get the shopping center site annexed and zoned for commercial use. In return, they agreed to the let the property be developed as a community shopping center and office buildings, not a regional shopping mall. In 1978, another unsuccessful purchase attempt of the property was led by developer Ernest Hahn.
In the early 1980s, various developers proposed ideas for a shopping mall in and around Boise. This began in 1980, with a mall proposed for nearby Meridian. During the same year, an urban renewal project in downtown Boise was planned to include a large shopping mall with Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) as an anchor store. ZCMI backed out of the downtown project in October 1980, and The Bon Marché was added in its place in 1981. The city eventually gave up on the idea of downtown shopping mall.
In 1982, Salt Lake City developer John Price proposed another shopping mall near the intersection of Interstate 84 and Cloverdale Road. Department store chains J. C. Penney, Lamonts, Sears, and ZCMI were committed to anchor the new shopping mall. In December 1982, the Federal Highway Administration approved a $6 million interchange at Cloverdale Road. Price offered to pay for the interchange, which would have advanced the 1990 completion date to 1985 or 1986. Meanwhile, Boise developer Larry Leasure proposed a shopping mall, named Westpark, at the intersection of Cole and Franklin Roads, but the mall was on hold due to zoning and access problems. Price said he might consider dropping the Cloverdale project if Leasure would agree to sell the Westpark site to him when the issues were resolved.
By December 1986, construction began on Boise Towne Square northwest of the intersection of Cole and Franklin Roads, the original site where Harry Daum attempted to build a shopping mall 13 years earlier. Within the next year, it was announced that Sears, JCPenney, Mervyns and The Bon Marché would be the new mall's anchor stores. Sears, JCPenney and The Bon Marché were operating locations in downtown Boise, and the latter two stores were also anchors at the Karcher Mall in nearby Nampa, the only mall in the area at the time. After Boise Towne Square opened, Karcher Mall would lose business to Boise Towne Square.
Opening
In September 1988, Sears and JCPenney both began to liquidate their downtown locations in preparation to open in the new mall. At the time JCPenney also liquidated their Karcher Mall location in Nampa and sold the location to Troutman's Emporium. The Bon Marché, however, planned to keep its downtown location for at least a year but eventually stayed until the chain's demise in 2005 when the company's name was converted to Macy's. Macy's operated the downtown location for five more years before closing in 2010 after declining sales.