A Project Among Pathways: Building the Warm Springs Grill + Golf
Where the greenbelt meets the foothills just east of downtown Boise, a pair of aging double-wide trailers once greeted golfers and thirsty travelers at Warm Springs Golf Course. Today, something more enduring and meaningful stands in their place: a gathering spot that belongs to the whole community.
The Warm Springs Grill + Golf isn’t just a clubhouse upgrade. It’s a fully electric, sustainably built public destination with a full-service kitchen, a 5,000-square-foot outdoor patio, and sweeping views of the Boise Foothills. Hikers finishing a trail, cyclists rolling off the greenbelt, and neighbors looking for a place to connect are just as welcome as the golfers. Mayor Lauren McLean put it best when she saw the finished building: “It defies all expectations that we had. This is what we wanted — a place where we can continue to build the community that makes Boise so special for everyone.”
Delivering that vision, however, required navigating a logistics puzzle that was anything but simple.
Keeping Boise Moving Safely
Millions of outdoors enthusiasts use the Boise Greenbelt every year, and it runs directly through the project site. The golf course also stayed open throughout construction. That meant golfers, staff, delivery trucks, and heavy equipment all funneled through a single entrance and exit point, sharing space with pedestrians and cyclists every single day.
ESI met that challenge head-on. Before the start of each new construction phase, the team analyzed logistics and adjusted plans: relocating barriers, updating wayfinding signage, and smoothing the greenbelt path as needed. The coordination extended beyond the job site, with continuous communication between ESI, golf course operations, the City’s accessibility managers, and greenbelt safety personnel.
The result: zero safety incidents. The public kept moving, the golfers kept playing, and the project kept progressing.
Within the worksite, ESI’s field team brought the same disciplined approach to worker safety. The self-perform framing work, which involved heavy timber installation and complex wall systems in a constrained site, required detailed lift and sequencing plans before anyone picked up a tool.
Safety wasn’t enforced from the top down. It became part of how the team worked. That culture, reinforced through task-specific training sessions, carried the framing phase to completion without a single injury.
A Project Built for Everyone
From the start, ESI and the City recognized that this project served an elevated purpose. Funded by a private donor gift and supplemental City investment, it had been a community priority for two decades. To reinforce the project’s purpose, ESI hosted open on-site Q&A sessions before construction began, sharing layout plans, explaining logistics, and explaining how every dollar would be spent. Those conversations turned neighbors into stakeholders.
Close collaboration and consistent communication played a huge part in delivering a successful project with minimal disruption. A few months in, the feedback is resoundingly positive. Today, the city has a hub that ties together its invaluable outdoor recreation resources and the communities it serves.
