Ada County's Park at Expo Idaho, nearly 50 acres along the Boise River in Garden City, opens Friday, October 23, on the site of Les Bois Park. The horse track had sat quiet after wagering was banned in 2015. Boise State Public Radio walked the grounds with senior project manager Josh Brown while crews finished the last work. About a million plants and plugs went in by hand. Only about a third of an acre is turf. The rest is native planting, laid out so the floodplain can still take the river, a requirement of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The paths run 3.4 miles. The skate park runs from beginner bowls to features taken from the Olympics, and a public bathroom there used 750,000 pounds of concrete, with a walkway that can be skated. The playground's swing hangs from a single post, like a track rail, and the tallest climb is 36 feet. The pace was tied to $42 million in American Rescue Plan Act money that had to be spent by the end of this year. Brown, who asked for bird habitat from the start, stopped mid-tour for a kestrel hunting over the new wetland, the first he had seen there, with a kingfisher chasing it off. He has also logged ducks, sandpipers, killdeer, a great heron, an egret the crew named Gary, plus fish, frogs, and salamanders. The ribbon cutting is at 10 a.m. on the plaza by the greenbelt. He said opening day is the worst the park will look, because the plants are meant to grow in.
A racetrack that had nothing to do for a decade is now a wetland and a place to skate, a short walk from the river path.
The report is from before Friday's ribbon cutting, while concrete crews were still on the skate park. The plantings, the path length, and the wildlife list are the project manager's account.
