Boise's very first hotel was the original building at Eighth and Main. The Overland Hotel, built in 1864, was a stop along the Oregon Trail. Then the Eastman family bought the property and razed it in 1904, making way for a four-story office building. At some point, they added two more stories before business fell off and the site was abandoned. In a bitter cold January in 1987, the vacant building burned to the ground. No cause was ever determined, however several theories floated around. One thought was that homeless people camping out in the building had started a fire to get warm and it just got out of control. Another theory posited it might've been high school kids getting up to some hijinks that, again, got out of hand.

Or, maybe it wasn't an accident. Billy Fong, a downtown tenant who, for the sake of commercial development had been evicted, put a legendary curse on the site. The Curse of Billy Fong would plague that square block for the next quarter of a century, as commercial development projects started … and stopped, several times over.

In 1997, Seattle-area developer Rick Peterson of Boise Tower Associates  proposed a 25-story condominium project. Construction began on the lot that had sat vacant for a decade, with earth movers, concrete and rebar visible through the chainlink fence surrounding the site. A billboard trumpeted: "Look what's going up downtown." But, as would happen again and again, the economy went south. The Dot-com bubble burst in 2000. Investors became scarce or just went away. Construction ground to a halt, leaving an ugly gouged hole in the ground surrounded by rusting rebar, gravel and weeds. People in the community gave the site a nickname that stuck for the next dozen years: "The Hole."

Other projects that sputtered and died included one in 2006 for a 31- to 34-story commercial and condo project to be called Boise Place. That one ended in a bankruptcy.

Years went by and The Hole, gathering tumbleweeds and dust, sat silent and empty. Then, in 2011, a couple of visionaries — Zions Bank CEO Scott Anderson and Gardner Company Chairman Kem Gardner — dreamed that they could build something there that just might work.

Anderson wanted a bigger footprint for Zions in Idaho and that corner in the heart of the city called to him. "Boise is a gem," he said. According to a blog post on Zions Bank's website, things all started to happen when Anderson took Gardner to the Eighth & Main site and said, “I’d really like a building here. I think we could anchor a few floors of this if you were able to do it."

It was a handshake deal that stuck. And, because the Gardner Company and Zions Bank had strong financial backing — even while coming out of the Great Recession — tenants began putting their hands up. They wanted in. With solid commitments from Holland & Hart, Ruth's Chris Steak House and, of course, Zions Bank, the place started filling up.

It started to look like things were turning around but "it took a lot of convincing for folks to sign on," said Dave Wali, a managing partner at the Gardner Company. "It was the first of the new sprouts after the Great Recession. It took us awhile to heal."

CURSE BE GONE — AND CARRY ON

The project moved forward and the groundbreaking on April 9, 2012, included a special guest. A shaman was brought in to get rid of the bad juju. It was a flourish they felt like they had to do, Wali said, even though the curse was probably not real.

The reason none of the previous projects had worked, he said, was because they were "just the wrong projects at the wrong time." But blessing the land was necessary; by then, the curse was an urban legend. According to an Idaho Press story, then-Mayor Dave Bieter joked that stepping foot in the pit for the first time was like Superman going into a kryptonite mine.

"There comes a time when pomp and circumstance makes a difference," Wali said.

RIGHT PROJECT, RIGHT TIME

And whether it was the newly-sanctioned ground or merely the right project at the right time, all fell into place. The structure rose before the community's watchful eyes. On Feb. 15, 2014, at Eighth and Main's grand opening, the building was christened by Zions Bank as "the crown jewel of downtown Boise commercial real estate." A party celebrating the "the tallest building in Idaho" took place with great fanfare, including food trucks, fireworks and a live performance by the Goo Goo Dolls.

"We decided to throw a party and yeah, we brought the Goo Goo Dolls to town," said Wali. It seems "a friend of a friend in the business" knew they were going on tour and called in a favor.

Making the Eighth and Main project a reality was "a monumental step for downtown and what downtown could be," Wali said. " … We were still reeling from the mall-ification of America," he said, referring to big-name shopping stores leaving downtowns and flocking to malls. Wali said that when he was growing up in Boise, all the big stores were downtown: Macy's, the Bon Marché, Sears, The Mode. (The Mode was a high-end department store in the same location in which the eponymous lounge now resides, utilizing the original's iconic signage as a nod to the downtown institution.) "When the mall was built, they all left," Wali said. And even though there had been "stepping stones to get people downtown again" — he cited 8th Street Marketplace, The Grove Plaza, Bodo — downtown Boise development didn't ramp up until the success of Eighth and Main.

THE RIPPLE EFFECT

Since then, there has been more and more downtown development — all because they were able to fix a problem and replace it "with something that's been such a great asset to the community," said Wali.

Deneen May, Zions Bank Western Region President, agrees. "Eighth and Main became impactful to Boise. It was a catalyst for additional development downtown. The Hole was holding back development," she said.

May said it was a big achievement and a huge milestone for Zions Bank. "We are proud of the fact we built the building — and that it was born during the recession." 

Because of Eighth and Main, a number of development projects took off: the expansion of the Boise Centre, The Clearwater Building, the Main Street Station transportation hub and more. "Without the success of Eighth and Main, that never would have happened," said Wali.

In addition, interest in big institutional projects spiked. Apartments, hotels and commercial space has loomed large in the decade since Eighth and Main opened for business, especially over the past five years, COVID be damned. Currently, the eight-story Renegade Hotel is slated to open in May and The Arthur at 12th and Idaho, a 26-story mixed-use building, is slated to open in May 2025. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Wali said there is still plenty of room for continued growth downtown. "Part of the new zoning code the City of Boise did recently, they identified areas where high density can occur. … As I look around, there's still plenty of surface parking lots downtown … all possible footprints for going up.

"Remember, Manhattan started with nothing on it once upon a time," he said. "Every downtown you see in America all started the same way — with nothing."

OH, AND ABOUT THOSE NIGHTTIME LIGHTS

The building's decorative panels that run vertically down the building's facade are lined with colored LED lights that change up regularly, sometimes every night. "It depends on what we decide to celebrate and who has put in a request," Wali said. Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness, dark blue for Colon Cancer Awareness, etc. "I'm a big fan of Ukraine," Wali said, "so we do (yellow and blue) a lot." Blue and Orange when Boise State University has a big game and silver, white and gold for the University of Idaho. Wali said while Eighth and Main was the first to install an LED light system, now a handful of other buildings have gotten on board and often they all will be supporting the same cause, up in lights.

So — how many LED lights does it take to light up the night? Wali said he doesn't know. "I just know it looks pretty good."

Editor's note: For a more detailed and comprehensive history, visit Eighth and Main's second floor.