For the better part of two years, the stretch of Eagle Road along The Village at Meridian's western edge has been fenced construction. You drive past it on the way to Costco, catch a glimpse of steel framing through the gaps in the barrier, and forget about it until the next time you're stuck at the light. That fence comes down this fall. The first stores open the weekend of October 9 through 11, and what's been quietly happening behind that construction site tells you more about Meridian's evolving retail scene than the storefronts themselves.
Here's the detail that should stop you: Phase II of The Village at Meridian was already fully leased before a single wall went up. Not mostly leased. Not on track to lease. Every one of the roughly dozen new retail spaces and four new restaurants across six buildings had a signed tenant before construction wrapped. That's not how most retail expansions work. Usually a developer builds it, then spends a year or two courting brands to fill it. Here, the demand showed up first.
Why a steakhouse waited a year and a half
The clearest evidence of that pent-up demand is The Capital Grille, the fine-dining steakhouse chain that will open its first Idaho location and only its second Pacific Northwest restaurant after Seattle. Hugh Crawford, the CenterCal executive who oversees The Village's leasing, didn't describe this as a routine deal.
"Capital Grille is a very coveted restaurant in the country, and we wanted them to be a part of The Village," Crawford told the Idaho Press. "We've been in negotiations with them for the better part of a year and a half."
A year and a half of negotiation for a restaurant, not a corporate headquarters, tells you the constraint wasn't interest. It was space. The existing Village, all one million square feet of it, sits at 100 percent occupancy. There was nowhere to put a new tenant even if that tenant wanted in. Phase II isn't speculative growth chasing a market that might show up. It's overflow.
What actually opens this fall
Crawford has said CenterCal expects roughly 70 percent of the new tenants open by this holiday season, with the full expansion wrapped by February 2027. Here's how the timeline breaks down based on what's been confirmed so far:
| Opening window | What's landing |
|---|---|
| October 9-11 soft opening | First wave of stores and restaurants, plus on-site entertainment |
| By holiday season 2026 | An estimated 70 percent of Phase II tenants |
| 2027 | Pottery Barn (an 11,724-square-foot store) and remaining tenants |
| February 2027 | Full Phase II completion |
The dining lineup is where the shift is most visible. Culinary Dropout, the gastropub known for dishes like Wagyu pigs in a blanket and 36-hour pork ribs, is opening its first Idaho location in a 7,000-square-foot space with two covered patios. Flower Child, the health-forward fast-casual concept, is also making its Idaho debut. Both are owned by Fox Restaurant Concepts, which means two of that company's brands are landing in Meridian in the same season. Paris Baguette, the bakery and sandwich chain popular across Utah and California, rounds out the food side.
On the retail side, Apple and Williams Sonoma anchor the expansion, joined by Kendra Scott, Tecovas (the Austin-based western boot brand), Gorjana jewelry, Tempur-Pedic, and 7th Avenue, a California furniture brand making its first Idaho appearance. Alo and Vuori bring two more athleisure options into a corridor that already has plenty. Solidcore, the reformer-based strength studio, adds a fitness concept to the mix.
None of this replaces what's already there. Crawford's counterpart, CenterCal CEO Jean Paul Wardy, framed the expansion as additive to a lineup that already includes Lululemon, Anthropologie, Evereve, and North Italia. The existing Village isn't being renovated or repositioned. It's getting a wing built onto a house that was already full.
Across town, a different clock
If you want to see what happens when demand hasn't shown up yet, head over to the corner of Broadway Avenue and Main Street, right next to Meridian City Hall. For years, that lot held a half-finished concrete skeleton, the remains of a project called Union 93 that was approved back in 2019 and then stalled out in 2022 when its developer ran into financing trouble. It sat fenced and unfinished long enough that locals just started calling it Meridian's hole.
In October 2025, developers Tommy Ahlquist and Caleb Roope of The Pacific Companies bought the site out of an Ada County Sheriff's auction and renamed it Heritage Square. The plans are ambitious: 120,000 square feet of Class A office space, two apartment towers built out of the existing concrete structure, a public plaza with a fountain, and 70,000 to 80,000 square feet of retail, roughly 60 percent of it restaurants. Ahlquist has talked about the project in personal terms.
"For years, this corner represented what wasn't happening. Soon, it will represent everything that's possible when we come together," Ahlquist said.
His stated goal is for Meridian residents to answer the question "what do you want to do tonight?" with "let's go to downtown Meridian." It's the same question The Village's expansion is answering right now, just on a completely different clock. Ahlquist expects groundbreaking in the first quarter of 2027, with a buildout of 20 to 24 months, meaning Heritage Square likely won't be finished until sometime in 2029.
Two answers to the same question, on two different timelines
That gap matters more than it might seem. Both projects are, in their own way, a response to the same pressure: Meridian has grown to the point where its existing commercial space can't keep up with what residents and visitors want. But The Village's answer is a bet that's already been placed and paid off, evidenced by a shopping center at full occupancy and a steakhouse chain willing to wait eighteen months for a seat at the table. Heritage Square's answer is still mostly renderings and a construction timeline that starts more than a year from now.
If you're planning your fall around what opens where, the distinction is simple. The Village at Meridian's changes are real and dated. You'll be able to eat at Culinary Dropout or buy boots at Tecovas before Halloween decorations come down. Heritage Square's transformation is a longer story, one that residents will be watching unfold in stages over the next three years rather than the next three months.
Both are worth paying attention to if you live here, because they say something about how the city sees itself right now: not as a bedroom community waiting for Boise to send its overflow, but as a place with enough of its own gravity to pull in a first-to-Idaho steakhouse and convince two experienced developers to bet on a corner that had sat empty for years. That's a different Meridian than the one a lot of longtime residents grew up with, and it's changing on a timeline you can actually watch.
If you've lived in Meridian long enough to remember when The Village itself was the new thing on Eagle Road, this fall is worth paying attention to. The corridor is changing again, and this time downtown is trying to catch up.
Whenever you're ready to talk about what any of this means for your own plans in Meridian, whether that's timing, location, or just understanding how a neighborhood like this is likely to keep evolving, Soldman Team knows this market from the ground up. Let's find your way home — book a consultation.
