IDAHO FALLS - After listening to public input and receiving eight possible proposal’s for the site, the Idaho Falls Convention and Visitors Bureau has been busy thoroughly studying locations over the past nine months.

The committee shortened that list to three possible sites and submitted the properties to a consulting firm to make a final decision. Their final recommendation; Snake River Landing.

“Any one of the three would have been viable candidates for this project. However, that is farther along in it’s development. There are plans for complimentary businesses that would work with the event center there and that edged out the other two,” explains Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director, Bob Everhart.

The other two site locations would have forced construction to start basically from nothing. Snake River Landing already has immediate name recognition, plans in place to build, roads and infrastructure, parking availability, and a close proximity to hotels, restaurants and the interstate. The site selection committee also took in factors such as access to utilities and possibilities of sustainable energy sources.

Snake River Landing plans to hold the facility on the southwest corner of their property. They’re also very excited about all the possibilities the event center brings for them.

“We have been excited that they’re working on this process for a long time and have always supported the idea of having an event center and thought it would be a great thing for this community. We were just extremely excited when we found out that we’d been selected for the site,” says Snake River Landing Chief Development Officer, Eric Isom.

The next step will include preliminary drawings of what it’ll look like and what will be included in it.

“We know that we need an anchor tenant, that’s probably a sports team. We know that we need large convention and trade show space, that’s a request we get all the time in Idaho Falls and we haven’t had the capability of doing. From an economic development standpoint, we need to be able to do that,” says Everhart.

“We think it’s a great thing for the region and it’ll really help put Idaho Falls on the map,” says Isom.

The facility is planned to be approximately 140-thousand square feet. Including parking, it’ll cover about 25 acres. Obviously, we’re a long ways a way from seeing it open, but they hope to break ground in the next 12 to 18 months.