Why I Love Downtown Idaho Falls
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the newsletter or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
There is a particular something, though it’s unclear what that something is, about downtown Idaho Falls that seems very appealing to me. Whether it’s wasting time playing guitar or bickering about music history (who did the most to damage music, Nirvana or Limp Bizkit!?) at Ziel Company, enjoying a slice of warm bread from Great Harvest, stopping in to visit with friends at the Defining Line Salon, or just kicking back with a hot cup of coffee at the Villa, downtown Idaho Falls seems to always welcome visitors with a cheerful, upbeat environment and plenty to keep you busy.
As I was battling the gusting wind, walking around old downtown yesterday, it dawned on me - as I looked around, there wasn’t the influx of major corporate chains you usually see in places like this. No McDonalds spewing wasted fat into the air from the Fry-a-lator, no Starbuck’s to charge $5 for bland coffee, no trendy Virgin Music store to push the filth that permeates radio right now. No, Idaho Falls represents what small towns in America can do if they let the people run things, not the stuffy suits.
Downtown Idaho Falls represents what America used to be like - one of a kind stores owned by people with drive and ambition, who love what they do, because they built their shops from the ground up. It is a monument to the power of the simple man (or woman) who sees a need and fills a need.
This is an attitude that America desperately needs right now. There is a philosophy becoming more and more dominant in the States that we want everything faster, cheaper, easier, not necessarily healthier, so long as it fills our bellies or satisfies our mile-a-minute lifestyle. However, there seems to be a hole in that reality, a safe haven for those of us who don’t believe that cheaper is better, that corporations can do things better than the average Joe, that every now and then, it’s important to stop and smell the fresh-brewed cup of Villa coffee from Kenya.
Downtown Idaho Falls is a community, not a marketplace. It is a tie that binds, rather than an arena of competition. Business owners regularly pass each other on the streets, engaging in polite conversation and encouraging remarks. Owners are helping owners, and the consumers are the ones that benefit the most.
So the next time you crave your coffee, pass on the overpriced, overhyped Starbuck’s. The next time you need a style, ditch Great Clips and head downtown, where life moves a little slower, and feels a whole lot better.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
Vote:
0 
0 Hear, hear Jeremy. I still think it would be great to make it a no vehic zone, and put in some skywalks. I used to live down in the middle many years back, and had a little art room there, too. It was one prolific time, just loving the downtown air. Someone lives in that spot now, and I wish I had never left. Lots o’ tweekers living in a couple of places, tho. Glad you brought it up.
Vote:
0 0 One of the many benefits of Taylors (I hope) is the fact that the big commercials will look there before defiling downtown with their presence. Hopefully in that way, the down home and peaceful (and very skatable) atmosphere will survive.
It is ironic, however to realize that big business is what built downtown in the first place, and drew people from near and far. And that their leaving (out to the Yellowstone area, at first, then to “The Mall”) was almost it’s downfall.
Vote:
0 0 Historic Downtown Idaho Falls serves as a perfect example of heritage development–a balance of preservation and progress, resulting in optimum quality of life.
Only by saving historic buildings is a community’s identity saved. Otherwise, chain stores and strip malls can turn any town into a ubiquitious suburb.
The I.F. downtown historic blocks, buildings and streets have been preserved, to maintain the city’s historic identity, personality and walking culture. The buildings and businesses have been restored for use by current owners and customers in new ways that resume the vibrant life of the past. This is a model for other historic downtowns.
Idaho Falls is my birthplace, its downtown a site of my childhood, along with Shelley. Over the years, as I’ve travelled, gone to school, and worked in other cities, Idaho Falls / Shelley have remained my anchor, my home.
Here, people have preserved more than buildings, a way of life that takes one back to childhood. Idaho Falls area refutes the notion that ‘you can never go back home.’ Home is still here.
In Shelley, we’re working hard to save our historic downtown blocks and our way of life. It’s not easy to save a small town from an invasion of opportunistic chain stores and cheap strip mall builders. However, it’s worth the price. Preservation brings profit, while demolition recreates itself.
As proof, contrast the quality of historic downtown and its thriving businesses, with the ghost malls at North Gate mile. Those shopping centers built in the 1970s tried to replace the supposedly outmoded historic downtowns with trendy chain stores. Instead, they created ugly buildings lacking character, quality and longevity. Now, they’re dinosaurs and eyesores, at best; worse yet, they violated the town’s true nature, working against its identity, context, personality and ecology.
Preservation is more profitable, for all, in the long run. It retains the life and character of a community. Losing historic buildings is a loss of identity, quality of life, and attractiveness to customers and visitors. People are more drawn to buildings that have historic integrity. Whatever a contracter or community thinks they save in dollars by tearing down an historic building and throwing up a cheaper one in its place, they lose in quality of life, and attractiveness to human beings.
Vote:
0 0 Well said, Maxine!
Vote:
0 0 I hope the downtown preservation committee sees that well written perspective, Maxine H.
Vote:
0 0 Goodness. “Vacant malls” on Northgate Mile? There’s one. And it’s hardly vacant — it’s used as warehouse space, something badly needed in this town. And it’s hardly a victim of ugliness, longetivity or a violation of Idaho Falls’ true nature. What used to be the Yellowstone Mall is just a victim of all the commercial growth that spread to the Ammon/Idaho Falls border. Same goes for the former Kmart on the west side. Look what happened to the Country Club Mall — a 1960s gem I really miss, for all the funky interior lighting and dark wood; a clear representation of the architectural/interior design of an oft-abused period of time. And Rhea’s Lowrey Center? There’s your intrepid businesswoman building her business up with her own ambition. I miss her. Fred Meyer has made that block look pretty good. Bland, but not junky. Yes, Rite-Aid is gone, but the old CCM area is hardly blighted. Idaho Falls business owners have done a fine job maintaining downtown, no arguments there. It’s a great place to go for a walk, just to get a closer feel in what is otherwise a flat, boring ol’ town. I’ll give IF’s downtown credit for this: They’re preserving buildings as they were originally built — unlike in Rexburg, where, with one and one-half exceptions, the downtown remodels have turned Rexburg’s downtown into the Stucco Kingdom. But don’t we tend to romanticize things, especially downtowns? It all reminds me of Ulysses Everett McGill’s line from “O Brother, Where Art Thou” (which I saw at the Centre Theater, downtown): Pomade Vendor: I can get the part from Bristol. It’ll take two weeks, here’s your pomade.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Two weeks? That don’t do me no good.
Pomade Vendor: Nearest Ford auto man’s Bristol.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Hold on, I don’t want this pomade. I want Dapper Dan.
Pomade Vendor: I don’t carry Dapper Dan, I carry Fop.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, I don’t want Fop, g****** it! I’m a Dapper Dan man!
Pomade Vendor: Watch your language, young feller, this is a public market. Now if you want Dapper Dan, I can order it for you, have it in a couple of weeks.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Well, ain’t this place a geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere!
I don’t mind living a little faster than that.
Vote:
0 0 Speaking of the Centre, I noticed their prices have hit the 5. Still cheaper than the others, but not the dig-thru-the-couch and go to a movie range, any more. Unless you have a really big couch.
Vote:
0 0 Does the downtown district have any design standards for renovations?
Vote:
0 0 When my friends rennovated their building, I think the main standards were electrical and lighting … I think the design restrictions are limited, if any. I’ll ask, though.
Vote:
0 0 Cool, I’d be interested to know that.
I’m thinking of design standards like historic districts use. I would just hate to see a nice old building get torn down and replaced with a metal-siding shed.
Vote:
0 0 I work in the downtown area and as such I’m quite familiar with it. When I think Idaho Falls downtown I think about the drunk, seedy people coming out of the Ross Hotel (above Fords), The Nelson (across from the Mayor), The Bonneville (at Park / Constitution), and several other ultra low income apartment complexes in the downtown area. The people, with a few exceptions, that live in these one room hovels with community bathrooms are by in large drunk, jobless, mentally ill, and do little but loiter in the area all day and night. Some aren’t this way but a lot are. I may sound like I have a lack of compassion but it doesn’t change the fact that these people bring down the austere of downtown.
I think dirty and scuzzy. The buildings are in disrepair and there is little pretty to look at. Contrast that to some downtowns (Twin Falls for instance) where the city has gone to great pains to plant trees, put in fountains, and beautify the areas. Idaho Falls has hung a few flower pots and put in silly benches. Thats like moving the couch over the big stain in the carpet instead of cleaning the carpet. We need fountains, we need trees, we need a common artistic theme in the downtown, and we need to clean out the squatter hotels. Downtown needs to look at the things Taylor’s Crossing is doing right and emulate.
The city talks a lot about improving downtown. And thats pretty much all its done for the last fifteen years.
Vote:
0 0 Ouch, the truth hurts!
I’ll have to balance my downtown perception and agree with Chiasm. I like most parts of downtown closer to Broadway, but the farther north you go the worse it gets.
And the city could use more action and less talk with improving downtown. Always talking about someday it’ll be great…
Vote:
0 0 I grew up in Idaho Falls when the Bon and Penneys were downtown. The green stamp store is where Melaleuca is, and so I see it now and want to cry. It’s so sad. The museum was the library. The whistle at the dry cleaners went off every day at twelve and one. When they built the library and the bank of idaho, they took out the places that held downtown together. I hear people complaining that it’s too far to walk from where they have to park. we didn’t mind walking when there was something to walk past. Now it’s all attorneys offices, title companies, banks and an occasional store. I don’t know if we have the ability to bring it back to a place where people would love to shop again.
It was just quaint. There was the chinese restaurant, the hub (LOL) the River City Saloon, the paramount theater… and my favorite, the wooden bridge to the fish hatchery!
Vote:
0 0 The Centre is the more expensive of Royal’s two theatres. There’s a new niche of discount theatres called ’secondary run’ theatres that are cheaper than those that carry the latest flicks, but yet they can get movies before they are released to the bargain basement “discount/dollar” houses. Also, the Centre is showing art films, which I wholly support. That’s something that also worked in Twin Falls and I am glad we have some (limited) access to it here too.
Vote:
0 0 I agree with the idea of needing to do more to upgrade the downtown area. I know the downtown development people (I’ve forgotten the name of the organization) have a person in charge of raising money to improve the buildings, etc. They were the ones that got the flower baskets installed…..and I think they also were behind the artsy seating. But I think its more than “one person” can do without lots of help. I wish I knew the answer to make it a great downtown area.
Vote:
0 0 Jester,
Would that be the Downtown Development Corp, with Shirley Chastain, as the Executive Director? Or the Idaho Falls Redevelopment Agency, the organization to which you are referring?
No one person has to have the answer, which is what part of this site is about. Maybe you mention you something you might like to see developed or what business you would support. Consequently, maybe a business owner reads it on here and wonders about the idea, so he/she may write an article trying to get feedback of how many people might support that business.
Have you contributed or not, but suggesting an idea or a need?
Vote:
0 0 Downtown Idaho Falls is losing another restaurant this month. Yummy’s had their building sold and they will be relocating across town to run their lunch trucks out of. The small little lunch shop is being replaced by a social workers office. The sad part of this is losing another retail location.
Vote:
0 0 Wow! How long were they in that location? Yummy’s was a long-time fixture there. I remember working downtown as a teenager and eating there every day one summer.
So it sounds like they won’t really have a restaurant anymore, just a place they load their trucks and go sell the food elsewhere?
Vote:
0 0 The current owners have had Yummy’s for 20 years I believe. They are going to toy with the idea of having the restaurant at a new location over by Leo’s place and hopefully drawn the students from IF High School. They told me they would see what draw they have an determine if they are going to serve food from their new location.
Vote:
0 0 Interesting. I always bought cookies from Yummy’s in the afternoon as I ran around downtown as a teenager.
I think that Denning’s Showkase could really do some work on the old “Grand” Hotel and Bar storefront they own. That’s a sad mark on that block of Broadway.
Leave Your Comment
Our Community's Comment Guidelines:- Please stay polite and on topic.
- Your email will never be published.
- No profanity or euphemisms for profanity.
- No personal attacks, name-calls, put-downs, or baiting other guests, races, genders, or religions.
- Express opinions, facts, logic, and reasoning; just don’t argue for argument’s sake.
- No commercial links (unless absolutely relevant to the discussion) and no religious proselytizing.
- No religious discussions (for or against). Go to http://religiondebates.blogspot.com for religious discussions.
- Use the "I" word as much as possible to demonstrate responsibility.
- Limit yourself to using one name per thread to demonstrate responsibility.
- If you think a comment is inappropriate, ask Joe to review it.
chill, gato, it ain't worth getting your purty fur messed up
Loading ...
Vote:
I couldn’t agree with you more - I love taking friends from out of town for a walk downtown - there are so many unique and interesting things to see that you really don’t find just anywhere. Plus it seems like everyone is so happy to be there - always a kind smile or a door held open - things just move at a friendlier pace downtown.