EAGLE, Idaho — Entering downtown Eagle, you may notice a small, quaint cottage called the Orville Jackson house that was built way back in the 1930s. And to preserve its history, the City of Eagle is asking the community how to re-utilize the grounds.
See what the City of Eagle plans to do with the Jackson Orville property:
Throughout downtown, there are several original buildings still standing from Eagle’s early days. One in particular is now being looked at to be reutilized by the city.
"It's a depression era house. It was designed by Tourtellotte and Hummel, a renowned Idaho architect. They designed the Idaho State Capital, Boise High School, and several other notable structures here around the valley," said the City of Eagle's director of long-range planning and projects, Nichole Baird Spencer.
In 2021, the city bought the property from a private owner to be able to ensure that it would be preserved in its state, with the intention to eventually refurbish and rebuild it for public use, as well as use the land surrounding to build commercial or residential spaces near downtown.
Spencer continued, "On the other end, the city sells back the property to private ownership with the new deed restrictions being put in place, to ensure the house and the shed are preserved."
The city last week held an open house and asked for feedback from the community on a few ideas they have for the re-utilization project.
"The city has already received 525 responses, not including what we got on the day of. This is an opportunity to bring the ideas to the table and bring them back to the council. This is really a public participation process. This isn't necessarily the end of this process; it's just the beginning of an open dialogue with the community to make decisions," explained Nichole.
Walking around downtown, I spoke with several people off-camera about the ideas, and many were on board with more parking for the downtown area.
All the available options to choose from are on their website. They will be encouraging community input until 5 pm Tuesday, June 17th.
