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Boise to welcome ‘crown jewel' of hotels on Grove Street. What's coming?
The newest hotel in downtown Boise is edging closer to opening in an area that has seen a wild transformation since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Construction crews, city officials, businessmen and developers celebrated a 'topping off' ceremony Wednesday for the incoming 15-story, dual-branded AC and Element Marriott hotel at 1011 W. Grove St. Attendees signed the final structural beam before a crane lifted it atop the building.
The AC Hotel will offer a 'sleek, modern experience' with a European style, while the Element Hotel will focus on 'wellness, sustainability and extended-stay comfort,' said Mike Webster, the president of Eagle's Pennbridge Hospitality, which is building the hotels.
The two hotels will be within the same building with a shared lobby. The 175-room AC will offer a minimalist experience, while all rooms in the 121-room Element will have kitchens and complimentary breakfasts.
'We think we're bringing something truly unique to the Boise market,' Webster said.
The estimated $100 million hotel will include 296 rooms with 10 suites, 9,000 square feet of meeting space, a fitness center and an outdoor roof deck with a spa, barbecues and fire pits on the fifth floor. On the 16th floor, the hotel will include a full-service restaurant and bar called the Boise Post flanked by two rooftop decks.
According to Tom Whitney, vice president of development at Pennbridge, the restaurant will use local ingredients in global dishes — such as a Thai larb salad with smoked Idaho trout or churros with Idaho potato flour. The restaurant will be open to the public, too.
'This will really be a crown jewel of the Boise hotel scene,' Whitney said. 'This property will be a landmark.'
The building has been under construction for 17 months, and it still has about nine months until crews finish, Whitney said.
The hotel is Pennbridge's 14th and its fifth in Idaho. The company's portfolio includes two hotels in Twin Falls, two Marriott hotels in Boise and the 10-story Residence Inn that opened on Capitol Boulevard in October 2017.
The new hotel will 'be a great compliment' to the Residence Inn, said Tom Lewis, one of two principals and cofounders of Pennbridge along with Jared Smith.
The building has been a long-time coming. The company bought the parking lot that filled the site in January 2020, according to Smith. Then the pandemic hit two months later, parking revenue went to zero, and the duo questioned what they were doing.
'The sun is much brighter in June of 2025 than it was in June of 2020,' Smith said.
In that period, a wave of new hotels and redevelopment swept through downtown Boise — focusing heavily on properties surrounding the 11th and Grove street intersection where the AC and Element Hotel is going up.
The 122-room Hotel Renegade opened on the northwest corner in May 2024, followed two months later by the boutique Sparrow hotel with 66 rooms on the northeast corner. Both Hotel Renegade and the AC and Element hotels filled former parking lots.
Mayor Lauren McLean said the new hotels are helping link the core of downtown to other parts of downtown along Grove Street.
'We have seen so much progress and development right here in an area that was pretty quiet just a couple years ago at the beginning of COVID,' McLean said at the event. 'And it has come to life.'
Cody Lund, the executive director of the Boise Centre, told the Idaho Statesman after the Sparrow opened that the city continues to see more demand than hotels have room for.
The new Pennbridge hotel could make a dent in that demand, but local hoteliers say the city is still lacking a large-scale hotel with 600 rooms or more that could help bring in bigger conventions or events.
The 296 rooms of the new hotel would get close, but not surpass, the largest hotel in the Greater Boise Auditorium District's boundaries: the Riverside Hotel in Garden City, with 300 rooms. But it would dethrone the largest in Boise: the Grove Hotel on Boulevard, with 250 rooms.
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