If you have ridden the Greenbelt north from Garden City this year, you already know the stretch. Chain-link fencing on the river side, dust plumes when the wind picks up, a detour sign that came and went, and behind all of it, earthwork on a scale that does not match "another park expansion."
That corner used to be the part of the ride you coasted through on the way to somewhere better. By this fall, it is going to be the somewhere better.
The corner most locals still coast past
The land in question is Ada County's Expo Idaho property, the 240-acre parcel most Boiseans know only as the place they park for the fair. Wrapping the fairgrounds is the former Les Bois Park horse racing track, defunct for years and, until recently, doing nothing but taking up river frontage. Construction is underway on a new 50-acre public park along Boise's Greenbelt at the Expo Idaho property, marking a step forward in redeveloping the former Les Bois Park horse racing track. The project, known as The Park at Expo Idaho, broke ground late last year and is scheduled for completion in 2026, funded with $32 million in American Rescue Plan Act dollars allocated to Ada County as part of the federal COVID-19 recovery effort.
The stretch of the Greenbelt between the Riverside RV Park and the Plantation Island Bridge was first closed in September to make way for construction of The Park at Expo Idaho, an ongoing renovation for 50 acres of the county's 240-acre property. The Park at Expo Idaho is currently anticipated to be completed this summer, ahead of the December deadline imposed due to the renovation's utilization of American Rescue Plan Act funds, which expire at the end of this year. A more recent Ada County release cited by regional sports coverage put the opening at October, with the 51-acre public park next to the stadium and along the Boise River still under construction as of spring.
Either way, the fence is temporary. What is behind it is not.
What is actually being built back there
This is where the story gets more interesting than a standard "new park coming soon" headline. The design work went to Philadelphia-based firm PORT, with construction by CM Company, as the first phase of a broader redevelopment of the Expo Idaho site surrounding the Western Idaho Fairgrounds. Read the amenity list and it becomes clear this is not a lawn with a walking path stapled on.
- A 5-acre skate park designed by California Skateparks, the same firm behind the skateboarding venue used during the 2024 Paris Olympics, integrated into the surrounding landscape to be easily accessible from the Greenbelt for cyclists and pedestrians.
- A food truck park with live-music seating, near the skate park and the Plantation Island bridge, modeled after similar Greenbelt-adjacent spaces in downtown Boise.
- A year-round pavilion by Marlon Blackwell Architects, providing shaded seating and year-round restrooms.
- A tiered playground with two play structures for different age groups, climbing walls, ropes, and slides threaded through seven-foot ridges and valleys.
- Signature oddities, including what has been described as "the largest swing set west of the Mississippi," designed to accommodate adults and inspired by the former rails of the Les Bois race track, plus a 64-foot zipline geared toward children and adults.
- More than three miles of trails winding through a wedge-shaped area along the Greenbelt, with the site excavated into ridges and valleys that lean into the natural wetlands topography close to the Boise River, creating small meandering streams lined with cattails and other native plants.
For context on the horticulture alone: Ada County had more than $10 million worth of native plants growing in 15 nurseries around the Mountain and Northwest to populate the park. That is not a rounding error on a municipal project. That is a long-lead-time bet on what the place will look like in a decade.
The design principle, according to project leadership, was full-family engagement in a single footprint: grandparents watching music while caregivers hang out with smaller kids on the playground and older kids take skateboards or bikes to the five-acre park next door.
If you live within a Greenbelt ride of this corner, the reason to care is not the ribbon-cutting. It is that a stretch of river most residents treated as connective tissue is about to have the pulling power of Ann Morrison or Kathryn Albertson without the parking constraints of downtown.
The stadium next door changes the sound of a summer Saturday
The park is only half the redevelopment. The western portion of the old Les Bois track now holds a 7,050-seat stadium at Expo Idaho on the grounds of the former horse racing track, with AC Boise selling over 6,000 season tickets for its inaugural USL League One season. The turf was one of the more visible tells that this was not a hobby project: a 20 mm shock-absorption underlayment sits under FIFA-certified FieldTurf, with sensors at various points to monitor performance, the highest-rated turf available in the U.S.
For a Greenbelt regular, the practical shift is the pregame movement. AC Boise's supporter group, the River Guard, has built two pregame rituals worth clocking if you are riding through on a match day. The first starts at Brown Beard Brewing at 4 p.m., with the group making a 6 p.m. march to the stadium about 10 minutes away. The second is a Greenbelt bike ride starting at 4:30 p.m. at Lost Grove Brewing near Boise State, followed by a stop at Laissez Faire Wine at 5:30 p.m. Both activities are free and open to the public.
For anyone who has ever done a spontaneous evening ride and stumbled into a crowd, that timing is the map. The pedal-to-the-pitch group is on the Greenbelt on match afternoons. Plan around it or plan into it.
A note on the tickets, because it comes up: the club sells 200 tickets for $10 each on every match day, with bleacher seats in the east side family zone starting at 2 p.m. Saturday at the stadium, purchased only in person and first-come, first-served to prevent scalping. That is a residents-first pricing model, not a suburbs-drive-in one.
How the late-August calendar rearranges around it
Late summer in Boise used to have two anchors that pulled traffic in opposite directions: the fair at Expo Idaho, and the rodeo half an hour west in Caldwell. The park and stadium do not replace either. They braid them together, because they sit at the same physical location as the fair.
Here is the compressed August calendar within a Greenbelt ride of the site:
| Dates | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 5, 19, 26 | Neighborhood Concert Series | Catalpa, Elm Grove, Bear Creek Parks |
| Aug 7 to 9 | Firebird Nightfire Nationals | Firebird Raceway, Eagle |
| Aug 8 | Boise Soul Food Festival | Julia Davis Park |
| Aug 15 | Caldwell Night Rodeo Kickoff | Indian Creek Plaza |
| Aug 18 to 22 | Caldwell Night Rodeo | Caldwell |
| Aug 21 to 22 | Rodeo Watch Parties | Indian Creek Plaza |
| Aug 21 to 30 | Western Idaho Fair | Expo Idaho |
Sources for the anchor dates: Western Idaho Fair runs Friday, August 21 through Sunday, August 30 at Expo Idaho in Boise, and Caldwell Night Rodeo runs Tuesday, August 18 through Saturday, August 22, with a kickoff at Indian Creek Plaza on August 15 and watch parties August 21 through 22. The Neighborhood Concert Series runs Wednesdays August 5, 19, and 26 at 5:00 PM at Catalpa, Elm Grove, and Bear Creek Parks in Boise. Firebird Raceway's signature national event runs August 7 through 9 with three days and nights of NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series racing, and the Boise Soul Food Festival is a free celebration August 8 at Julia Davis Park.
Look at what that stack means for a Greenbelt user. The last ten days of August put fair traffic on the same access roads the park will feed off. Locals who ride into Expo Idaho for the fair from the Boise side, instead of driving Chinden or Glenwood, are going to have a real edge, because the Greenbelt entrance now empties into a park with restrooms and shade instead of a fence and a portable toilet.
A different weekend loop, once the fence comes down
The way most Boise residents already ride from downtown to the north edge follows the river out past Garden City, past The Boardwalk complex at 521 E. 41st in Garden City, and eventually turns around somewhere before Eagle. The new middle of that loop is a place to actually stop.
A few practical shifts worth internalizing before the opening weekend crowd figures it out:
- The Plantation Island Bridge becomes a decision point rather than a landmark. Coming from downtown, you can now cross into the park side or stay on the Garden City bank, and the two rides feel different.
- The food truck park is designed for people arriving by bike. That is not a marketing line, it is what the plan documents describe as the primary access mode from the Greenbelt through the skate park entrance.
- On AC Boise match days, the Greenbelt is not a shortcut. It is part of the pregame. The River Guard's ride from Lost Grove Brewing through Laissez Faire Wine is a moving event, not a passing one.
- Fair week is going to feel different this year. The park's opening in October means late August will still be a construction-adjacent experience, but the fence line has already moved and the through-route is open.
There is one more piece of context worth holding onto. Boise State's famous Blue Turf turns 40 this year. Installed in 1986, it was the first non-green football field in the country. To mark the milestone, Albertsons Stadium hosted special events this summer including Banana Ball and the Hot Wheels Monster Truck Show, and the turf will be replaced this fall ahead of BSU's football season. The city gets a second engineered playing surface at Expo Idaho the same year the original iconic one gets replaced. The symbolism is not subtle.
The Greenbelt is not gaining a park. It is gaining a center of gravity roughly halfway between downtown and Eagle, in the exact stretch that used to be the ride's dead zone. The residents who figure that out first will be the ones who quietly rearrange their Saturdays around it before anyone else notices.
If you are thinking through what this kind of neighborhood-scale change means for where you live now or where you might land next, the team at Jan Larison Real Estate knows this corridor and the Treasure Valley around it in detail. Schedule a free consultation and we will talk through it with you.
