BOISE, Idaho — Meridian is drawing people from all over the Treasure Valley for big mixed-use developments with yet another on the way. But while the city is gaining a lot with all this new development, plenty of folks are missing what Meridian is losing.
Tommy Ahlquist is the CEO of Ball Ventures Ahlquist, the development company behind the District at Ten Mile, a huge new development headed for a chunk of land off the Ten Mile exit. "We're really excited,” Ahlquist said. "It's 222 acres. And it'll be a very large mixed-use project that will have combination of various types of housing, a big retail center, more office space, a medical office and entertainment."
This is going to be just the latest development in that area.
According to Ahlquist, "We did a lot across the street at 10 Mile. And with that interchange, and with what's going on with Highway 16, it truly is the center of the valley. It's easy for people to get to, regardless of where you live.”
Meridian has been one of the fastest-growing cities in the country for years. Its population spiked by 56% from the 2010 Census to the 2020 Census. Besides the number of people, the city has also grown in number of square miles, sprawling into Boise, Eagle, Kuna, and now especially Nampa to the west.
"There's a lot of housing around that area,” Ahlquist said. “It's a great place to to live, because there's so many places to work that are options around you."
Meridian was, for a time, battling to avoid becoming a bedroom community with only miles and miles of subdivisions. They focused on adding business and industry. The battle seems to have been won, with the District, all the development across Ten Mile, the Village at Meridian, all the businesses up and down Eagle Road, Scentsy, TopGolf, etc… This Meridian is almost unrecognizable from the Meridian of the 90's or even a few years ago. And that's a problem to a lot of people in town.
Pam Martin moved to Meridian more than two decades ago. "So, we moved from Nebraska, a small town of about 650 people to Meridian in 1998."
She and her family were attracted by, not the business development, because that was not there, but the city's rural identity. "We were really drawn that there were still the cornfields, not so many bean fields, but there were mint and other fields, just all around us… And we just fell in love."
That Meridian, the smaller rural town of 30,000 people, is gone. About 100,000 people have moved in since then. Also, all those former fields now have homes or businesses built on them. Pam, like many folks miss that Meridian. "I know that we can't go back to that."
But she's keeping perspective, "The growth is good in that we have great restaurants. Meridian is starting to boom where its downtown is becoming more lively. And I think that's a positive."
But Martin adds, "Traffic is a negative… Lack of sidewalks, lack of bike paths, those types of things kind of limit your ability to get to places quickly. And even the traffic at certain times a day is just gridlock."
She knows that just because you can't stop change doesn't mean you can't plan for it. And with Meridian growing into other cities, she knows it will take much improved coordination to ease the biggest business growing pain for this community, traffic.
"Each individual city affects the other. So, I hope that that changes a little bit in the future and that they start to have those conversations as we're going to continue to grow. And I think they need to plan far ahead for that. If they can, if they can catch up."
COMPASS does have a traffic plan for the entire valley.
Martin also said that even though Meridian is exploding in population, it still feels like a small rural town because of how nice everyone is. That includes the new Meridian residents, even those from California.
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