Garden City's New Park Is Mostly Wetland, and It Opened in Its Plainest Season
October 29, 2026
October 29, 2026
"When we open, it's going to be finished, but it's the worst it's ever going to look," Ada County Senior Project Manager Josh Brown told Boise State Public Radio a few days before Ada County's Park at Expo Idaho opened on October 23. He was talking about the plants. The concrete was ready on opening day. Most of the park is restored floodplain, and that part will take years to fill in.
That changes how the park works for anyone who already rides or walks the Greenbelt through Garden City. On the county's own map it looks like a 50-acre playground. It runs more like a wildlife area that happens to have an Olympic-caliber skate park at one corner, and late October is when the gap between those two halves is widest.
The park sits on the site of the former Les Bois Park racetrack, between the Boise River and the Western Idaho Fair grounds, near Glenwood Street and Chinden Boulevard. The track sat dormant after wagering ended in 2015. Brown told Boise State Public Radio that the entire park has only about one-third of an acre of turf grass. Native species fill the rest, and crews planted nearly a million starter plants and plugs by hand.
That ratio came from a requirement. According to the same report, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers required planners to put flood capacity from the Boise River first while reestablishing a wetland, and "we had to design everything else around" it, Brown said.
The wildlife moved in ahead of the public. On his pre-opening walk, Brown listed ducks, sandpipers, killdeer, a great heron and an egret the crew had named Gary, and he stopped mid-sentence to point out a kestrel hunting while a kingfisher chased it off. He also mentioned fish in the streams, frogs and salamanders, and said beaver habitat may need monitoring to keep water moving through the marsh.
"Let the wildlife be wild. Bring your camera with a long lens, get some good pictures, but don't get down in their space."
That was Brown's advice to visitors in the Boise State Public Radio piece. The park rules follow the same logic. Ada County's park page lists these:
The sunrise-to-sunset hours matter more this time of year than they will in June. An after-work loop on a November weekday is a short window.
The trail system is the main reason to come right now. The county lists more than three miles of nature trails, and Boise State Public Radio put the path total at 3.4 miles. The park connects straight to the Boise River Greenbelt and has three loops of its own, with short connector trails between them:
Chaining all three adds a little over a mile and a half to a Greenbelt outing without retracing any stretch of the river path. With the plantings dormant and the trees not yet leafed out, the Lowlands are about as open to view as they will ever be. Brown expects every year to look "better and better" as the plants grow and get established.
The skate park, playground and pavilions don't need to grow in. The All-Wheel Skate Garden anchors the park's northwest corner and is open to skateboards, bikes, scooters and roller skates. The Idaho Statesman reported that it covers 1.9 acres, half an acre more than Rhodes Skate Park under the I-84 overpass. California Skateparks designed it, and it includes stairs and rails copied from Olympic skate parks plus a roller derby rink. A long stretch runs parallel to the Greenbelt, with newly planted trees between the paved tracks. Even the restroom is part of the course. The Statesman reported the bathrooms are skateable, and Boise State Public Radio described a building made from 750,000 pounds of concrete with a skateable walkway and lighting underneath that makes it look like it floats at night. The county recommends parental supervision for children under 12 in the skate area.
The racetrack history shows up all over the park. In its walk-through, Boise State Public Radio described railings like a horse track's, a refurbished watchtower, and an elevated, barn-style pavilion where skylights create updrafts that cool the picnic area without fans. The same structure sends rainwater off one side as a waterfall. The playground's swing set, which the report calls the largest public swing set west of the Mississippi, hangs from a single post shaped like a track railing. The tallest play structure is 36 feet and ends in a corkscrew slide. "This isn't designed just for kids," Brown told the station, encouraging adults to climb the boulders and wood scrambles too.
The plaza next to the Greenbelt, near the bridge to Plantation Island, is where the county can schedule events, with food trucks and live music. The county describes the trucks as rotating, so the lineup changes from visit to visit.
By bike or on foot, you reach the park straight from the Greenbelt, and there are bike racks. Drivers have two lots, according to the county's grand-opening page. One is a southeast lot off Remington Street, reached by Kent Lane. The other is a northwest lot off Backstretch Boulevard, reached from Glenwood Street at the Boise Hawks stadium. The northwest lot is the closer one for the skate park.
The quarter-mile of Greenbelt behind Expo Idaho that Garden City closed October 19 through 22 for final opening preparations was scheduled to reopen when that four-day window ended. That makes the park one more reason to spend Greenbelt time on the western stretch, which we wrote about when Boise's east-side segments were under construction.
The park is separate from the Athletic Club Boise soccer stadium on the same county property. It also cost local taxpayers nothing to build. The roughly $42 million came from federal American Rescue Plan Act funds. Boise State Public Radio reported the money had to be spent by the end of this year or returned, which is why the timeline was so fast.
The first scheduled outing after opening weekend fits the park's wild side. Golden Eagle Audubon is leading a birding walk at the park on Sunday, November 8, through the trails, wetlands, lookouts, nature play area and skate park. It's free, but registration is required. The county has said reservation and permit details for pavilions and events are coming, so check Expo Idaho's park page for new listings.
The rest of Garden City's late-fall calendar sits a short ride east:
The park's daylight hours end before most of Garden City's tasting rooms close, so one easy routine is a loop through the Lowlands followed by a stop on the 32nd-to-44th Street stretch or along Chinden. Push & Pour is at 214 E. 34th St. Barbarian Brewing's taproom is at 114 E. 32nd St. Telaya Wine Co. is at 240 E. 32nd St., Proletariat Wines at 106 E. 36th St., Split Rail Winery at 3200 W. Chinden Blvd., and Laissez Faire Wine Co., a wine bar with small bites, at 521 E. 41st St., Suite 165. Belmont Brew House is at 3840 W. Chinden Blvd. Coming next summer, Function Brewery has proposed a restaurant and taproom at 212 E. 34th St., next door to Push & Pour and about a block from the Greenbelt. The owner is targeting summer 2027, pending design review and permits, as BoiseDev reported. For more of the corridor, see our summer guide to Garden City's newer spots and our Garden City neighborhood page.
Next spring the native plantings around the Ridge and Meadow loops will be in their first full growing season. This fall, the boardwalk over the Lowlands is the place to see how much of the new park was built for the river and the birds.
If you own a home near the Greenbelt in Garden City and are curious what it's worth now that a new 50-acre park has opened nearby, Chuck and Laura Costa can walk you through it with a free home valuation. It comes with clear numbers and no pressure.
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