Site history
The Boise Fairgrounds Track opened up in May 1970 for horse racing, before being renamed to Les Bois Park three years later. [2] Located just across the Boise River from the city of Boise, the horse race track was built in mind for both thoroughbred and quarter-horse racing. [3] The track hosted races on its grounds continuously for almost forty years until August 2008, when the racing firm Capitol Racing cancelled their lease with Ada County on February 13, 2009, due to Capitol Racing's claims of an inequitable terms of the lease of the race track. [4] The race track was reopened in the summer of 2011, where a new tenant, Treasure Valley Racing, took up the reigns of hosting horse racing at Les Bois Park. [5]
Following the return of horse racing at Les Boise Park, the next couple of years for the site were filled with legal battles surrounding the legality of betting on horse races. The majority of the funding for the site resided in the legality of horse race betting, with the instant horse racing betting machines located on site having been legalized in 2013 by state legislature. [6] However, public opinion began to sway against the legality of the instant horse betting machines, with the bill legalizing them being immediately repealed the next year, which caused conflict with Treasure Valley Racing, who renovated the site privately. [7] With arguments on horse betting boiling over into debates brought up by the private owners of Les Bois Park on the possibility of similar horse betting machines on the tribal casinos of the Coeur d’Alene tribe, who were major advocates of the banning of the machines, [8] the profitable horse gambling machines were banned state-wide in September 2015. [9] Without the machines' money to help sustain the race track, on-site horse racing ended in 2015, [10] and Les Bois Park officially shut down on March 19, 2016. [11]
Soccer development and construction
In the afterglow of the debacle with Treasure Valley Racing, Ada County officially declared that there would be no more horse racing at Les Bois Park and Expo Idaho in November 2019, and began to net new development proposals for the Expo Idaho plot. [12] Looking to bring back sports to the site, Ada County specified in a September 2024 posting that the county was auctioning off Les Bois Park's grandstand and adjacent facilities to only developers interested in creating a 6,000 or more capacity stadium for any sports. [13] This offer was taken up by Boise Pro Soccer, who was the sole bidder in the following month's auction of the site, winning a thirty-year lease on the stadium for $150 thousand a year. [14] Boise Pro Soccer's plans included incorporating the old grandstand and the Turf Club into their new stadium, which would start off at a capacity of 6,225, and be expandable to up to 11,000 people. [15]
Construction began on the new soccer stadium on March 27, 2025. [16] [17] Turf was installed at the stadium in November 2025. [18]
