BOISE — Several houses on St. Luke's property in downtown Boise will be relocated as part of its development plan. The houses have been deemed historically significant and St. Luke's decided it was important to try and preserve them. The first house is being moved Thursday night.
Up to 10 residential and commercial buildings will be moved off of St. Luke's property next to the Boise medical center. The other structures will be moved throughout the rest of the summer and early fall.
Theresa McLeod is the Director of Community Engagement for St. Luke's. She says this starts the next phase of a redevelopment project.
"It's the first movement that will allow us to begin to realize the master plan components that the city adopted," said McLeod.
McLeod says the plan will modernize the hospital and improve access and care.
Before the plan was approved St. Luke's reached out to the community for insight, and that's when McLeod says preservation was brought to their attention.
"So we worked through a process of a couple of years with preservation organizations and they helped to identify structures," said McLeod.
Two are on the historic registry, but McLeod says there are many others that are historically interesting. They will be saved as well, and eventually, have new owners.
"Working with the preservationists we learned it's not just important to preserve a structure," said McLeod. "Ideally you'd preserve it in place, but if that's not possible then you would preserve it to another location and restore its original use. So that's the ultimate goal of preservation and that's what will happen."
During the moving process Thursday night of the first house there will be flaggers in place on Avenue B between Bannock and Jefferson streets. The move, including taking down traffic signals, will take approximately three hours starting at midnight.