The buildings going up in downtown Boise do not look like the Boise of a decade ago. Sheathed in floor-to-ceiling glass and steel, they announce a city that has decided to grow upward, and they carry the price tags to match — penthouse figures that would have seemed absurd in the Treasure Valley not long ago.
The towers are a response to hard arithmetic. Hemmed in by foothills on one side and prized agricultural land on the other, Boise cannot sprawl indefinitely without paving the very landscape that draws people to it. Building vertically is, for the developers behind these projects, the only responsible alternative — density that houses more people on less ground.
Aesthetically, the new construction represents a clean break from the low-slung brick and mid-century stock that defined the city's core. Some residents welcome the sophistication; others see the glass towers as an unwelcome import, coastal architecture grafted onto a place that prided itself on being different.
What is not in dispute is that the skyline has changed for good. The only question left is how much higher it goes.
