In just a couple of years, we will be able to weave through a water slalom course at Boise River Park, play on a series of mini-rapids or just sit and watch other people doing those things from the banks of Esther Simplot Park.

The J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation is donating a $3.5 million grant to finish the second phase of the Boise River Park. They donated $1.7 million for phase one of the park.

The grant will fund three new play waves, a slalom course, improved river access, river hazard removal, floodway improvements, river access from Veterans Park Pond and an additional viewing plaza.

The Albertson family said they wanted to invest in projects and ideas that can transform communities.

The city of Boise will match the phase two grant. The second phase will occupy a half-mile stretch of river downstream from the first-phase dam. It will feature lochs, boulders and other obstacles that produce a variety of wave types and difficulty levels.

Between the expanded whitewater park, Quinn’s Pond and Esther Simplot Park, under construction just east of the river along Whitewater Park Boulevard, Boise soon will offer an urban recreation corridor “that is absolutely like nothing else in the country!

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