I spent a lot of mornings in the old downtown YMCA.
All four years of high school, I was there for morning basketball before class. The summer I was trying to make the high school team, I was there every single day, playing pickup ball in the mornings!
So when I shot this footage over State Street this month and saw the new building nearly finished across the street from the old one, it hit a little different. That old gym is part of my story.
I’ve spent my career in Treasure Valley commercial real estate, as a broker and as an owner-operator, and I’ve learned that buildings like this are never just buildings. They’re anchors. They decide where people go every day, and where people go every day decides what everything around them is worth. So here’s my look at the new Y: part memory, part underwriting.
Opening day: December 12
The new CapEd Downtown YMCA opens at 10 a.m. on Friday, December 12, with classes starting the next day. It’s about 109,000 square feet over four stories, up from roughly 86,000 SF in the 1968 building across the street. Total cost is right around $80 million. CapEd Credit Union’s $5 million gift put its name on the door.
Inside: a six-lane lap pool, a warm-water rec pool, a three-lane indoor track, a full sports court for basketball, volleyball, and pickleball, studios, a teen center, and adaptive fitness spaces throughout. The kid who spent a summer chasing a roster spot in the old gym is a little jealous.
The part CRE people should notice: the tenants
St. Luke’s is taking about 8,000 SF inside for clinical care, exam rooms, and health coaching. CapEd is opening a roughly 1,600 SF branch, its first that isn’t freestanding.
That’s a healthcare operator and a financial institution choosing to co-locate inside a community anchor instead of building their own box. I’ve seen this play out firsthand. When I backfilled a 16,000 SF former JOANN box on Federal Way, the winning combination was a national medical user, Concentra, next to a fast-growing local gym. Medical and fitness feed each other. People who show up every day are the most valuable thing a piece of real estate can have.
What’s still coming, and what didn’t
Directly south, CCDC has started a 446-stall parking garage with ground-floor commercial space, including a YMCA early education center. Parking has always been the knock on this edge of downtown.
But it’s worth remembering what this was supposed to be. The original Block 68/69 vision, pitched at roughly $320 million, included 600-plus apartments, a high-rise, senior living, office, and retail. Financing fell apart in 2024 and most of it was scrapped. The Y and the garage are what survived.
The hurdles left
Here’s my take: this project isn’t across the finish line yet. The Y is still raising money. The old building still has to come down. And the Y has said that selling the old site, plus the former synagogue lot it uses for parking, is part of how the new building pencils.
That last piece is where I get nervous. Local politics right now are not doing developers in downtown Boise any favors. Between rising costs and a city that hasn’t exactly rolled out the welcome mat, the pool of buyers who can make a downtown deal work keeps shrinking. That’s how a $320 million vision turns into a parking garage. If the old Y site sits as a fenced lot for years because nothing pencils, it hurts the Y, the neighbors, and the new anchor everyone just paid for.
I’d love to see that block become housing, retail, or anything that brings even more people to State Street every day. I hope it turns out alright. Whether it does depends a lot on whether the city wants to help it happen.
Bottom line
New anchors change the math for everything around them. If you own or lease near State and 11th, the next 18 months are worth watching closely. If you want to talk through what it means for your property, reply to this email or reach me at blake@kzbrealestate.com.
And if you see me at the new Y in December, I’ll be the guy checking whether the rims are as forgiving as the old ones.
Blake Haggett, KZB Commercial Real Estate