Sixty years ago this year, crews built the large Greyhound bus terminal at 12th and Bannock in Downtown Boise.
Soon, the buses will stop rolling through the streets of the Boise core.
Greyhound applied to convert a small portion of the Flying J truck stop on Federal Way for use as its Boise bus station. A new bus parking lane will sit next to the existing convenience store. Crews will add a small ticket sales kiosk inside the building with a small waiting area.
Valley Regional Transit held extensive discussions with Greyhound to use Main Street Station for buses earlier this year according to board agendas. A VRT spokesperson said there are no longer discussions taking place with Greyhound.
New owner for property
In July, West Bannock Dev LLC purchased the property from Greyhound Lines Inc. The property and building had a value of $875,500 according to the Ada County Assessor – a 30% increase over the prior year. Business filings show Jay Story as the manager of West Bannock Dev. He did not return a request for comment by the deadline for this story.
The discussions with VRT indicate an average of just 13 people used Greyhound service in Boise each day, spread across three boardings per day.
The large existing Greyhound building in Downtown Boise stands at 9,185 square feet. It cost $191,000 to build in 1959. It included a bus shop, storage and restaurant in addition to the waiting area. Much of the building now serves other uses. The bus terminal is only open for a few hours each early morning and late evening.
The .85 acre property sits in the Capital City Development Corporation’s Westside Urban Renewal District. Just to the south and east of the property, Rafanelli & Nahas broke ground on a large new office building, and other projects are in the works in the area.
