Business
JUMP Project About To Leap To Life
October 1, 2015 
A sneak peek from atop a parking garage reveals the long awaited JUMP Project–for “Jack’s Urban Meeting Place”–is nearing completion.
Simplot Company Chairman Scott Simplot told the GUARDIAN, “We are aiming for a December 4 opening, but plan to have it finished at least before the end of the year.”
A source of pride for Simplot and a fact worth noting is the JUMP project, a non-profit organization aimed at stimulating the arts, and the new Simplot World Headquarters under construction nearby are both privately financed and involve no public money or subsidy in any manner.
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© 2015 Boise Guardian. 
Oct 1, 2015, 2:27 pm
December 4th?
What year?
Oct 2, 2015, 12:08 pm
Remember the movie “The Fly” where the hero goes into the transporter device with a fly and they come out all jumbled up? The JUMP CENTER looks like all the buildings in Boise went through a transporter and got scrambled up together. …or maybe the architect was on acid. Damn weird any way you look at it. A friend had a peek around the place and thinks the roof will be leaking in multiple places do to the design.
Oct 2, 2015, 10:09 pm
JUMP! A place where the homeless finally have a place to be!
Oct 2, 2015, 10:11 pm
Ah, joking aside. This sounds just like the EMP. And, for those of you who did not have the privilege of living in Seattle in the ’90’s when they built the EMP, “experience music project” then I assure you, this JUMP stinks of the same scent of failure.
Oct 3, 2015, 1:37 pm
Thank you Simplot family! No good deed goes unpunished… but jack knew that and built a beneficial global empire anyway.
Hoping some other rich guy/gal family will build us a tramway all the way to Bogus Basin resort and turn it into a four-season recreation area. They can urban renewal develop the NorEnd and low-flats between Bogus and Idaho City into recreation resort community. Nouveau riche from all over the world will buy up the housing and businesses and turn it into a less expensive Ketchum/Aspen/Vail kind of place. St. Luke’s can evolve into a Mayo Clinic style health care boutique for Arabs and Chinese rich folks. Massive tax base for Team-Dave to roll around in, and beats the heck out of 75 F-35s flying overhead all night long. (This is basically what they tried to do in Donnelly, but their economic timing sucked and it takes 2+ hours to get there from the nearest airliner-sized airport.)
Oct 4, 2015, 5:58 pm
It would be nice to know how we in the community can interact with JUMP. All we know is that is a “Simplot place”.
How do we little people use JUMP? Or can we even us it? How much does it cost? Likely more than we can afford. Is it just for the rich people to use?
It just seems like a nice building but they don’t want anyone to know how to interact with it.
Oct 5, 2015, 9:45 pm
Mel – JUMP is a monument to JR and Ester. Kind like the pyramids in Egypt. It had to be bigger than the Morrison Center or Albertsons Park.
Oct 6, 2015, 11:37 am
Seems no matter the project, the funding mechanism, the vision or lack there-of, the creativity or lack there-of, so many are naysayers. JUMP is not funded us. Consider it a gift. For those of you like Mel, do a little research. The basics are all on line. For those of you confused on the “why”, maybe you haven’t experienced things such as The Exploratorium in SF, or immersed yourself in the nuances of the full Smithsonian offerings in DC, or had a picnic listening to music at “the Bean” in Chicago’s Millennium Park. California Academy of the Sciences also very hands on, and in fact, took our family more than two full days to enjoy. As for the EMP comment….though Gehry’s architecture is controversial to some, EMP (FORMERLY Experience Music Project) is engaging people to this day, 16 years after construction. I know, none of these are exactly the same as JUMP, but a similarity is that none could exist without a vision and action. Will JUMP succeed? We don’t know. I feel that with a personal investment of this magnitude in something that will forever be linked to their not-yet-built global headquarters, SIMPLOT will actively engage creative management at JUMP to assure success. I’m excited.
Oct 7, 2015, 6:59 am
You can not compare the Smithsonian, Millennium Park, and the EMP all at once. Not even remotely comparable. Well, I guess I can see how an Idahoan can confuse those things. I think built to spill plays there still…
Oct 7, 2015, 9:32 am
Tractors and a community space. JUMP seems to be a little bit of everything and I think that flexibility will make this a great place in the future.