If you've been watching the construction fencing creep along Eagle Road for the better part of a year, you've probably assumed there's a single ribbon-cutting weekend coming where the new wing of The Village at Meridian throws open its doors all at once. That's not how CenterCal, the company that owns the shopping center, is actually running this. Hugh Crawford, the company's vice president of property management, has laid out a staggered rollout that stretches from this September into early 2027. If you're planning a Saturday around a store that isn't open yet, it helps to know which wave it's actually in.
Five Openings, Not One
The plan started smaller than what's under construction now. CenterCal's original expansion called for three buildings adding roughly 65,000 square feet along the Eagle Road frontage between Fairview Avenue and Longwing Lane. By January 2026, new filings with the city added three more buildings and close to 46,000 additional square feet. What's now under construction has settled into a six-building, 80,000-square-foot second phase, already fully leased according to CenterCal.
Crawford has described the opening sequence in plain terms: the first round of stores lands at the end of September or end of October 2026, a second wave opens right before the holidays, and the final round arrives in the first quarter of 2027. CenterCal has said the whole expansion should be complete by February 2027. So "opening this fall" really means the first of at least three separate openings, not a single event to circle on the calendar.
What's Actually Confirmed
Between permit filings, city planning documents, and CenterCal's own announcements, the tenant list has firmed up considerably over the past several months. Here's what's been publicly confirmed as of this writing:
| Tenant | Category | What's known |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | Retail | A roughly 10,000-square-foot store, its first in Meridian, next to Pottery Barn |
| Pottery Barn | Retail | An 11,724-square-foot home furnishings store |
| Williams Sonoma | Retail | A 5,550-square-foot cookware and housewares shop |
| 7th Avenue | Retail | A California furniture brand's first Idaho location |
| Kendra Scott | Retail | Fashion jewelry, one of the earliest tenants to file permits |
| Gorjana | Retail | Jewelry brand joining Kendra Scott and local retailer Eight Five One |
| Tecovas | Retail | Western boots, the brand's first Idaho location |
| Vuori and Alo | Retail | Two athleisure brands in the same retail cluster |
| Tempur-Pedic | Retail | A flagship mattress store down the street from the Village's existing Purple location |
| Culinary Dropout | Restaurant | A 7,000-square-foot gastropub with two covered patios |
| The Capital Grille | Restaurant | Fine dining sited across from Culinary Dropout on Eagle Road |
| Flower Child | Restaurant | Healthy fast-casual, its first Idaho restaurant |
| Paris Baguette | Bakery-cafe | The Korea-based chain's Meridian bakery |
| Solidcore | Fitness | A reformer-based strength studio, the brand's Idaho debut |
Every name on that list has been confirmed through city permits, CenterCal's own leasing announcements, or direct reporting on the construction. A rumored Target near Franklin and Ten Mile, which keeps coming up in local chatter, is a separate project entirely and still has no confirmed timeline.
Why Shops Instead Of The Apartments That Were Already Planned
Here's the detail that actually explains the shift in what's being built. This same footprint was once slated for hundreds of luxury apartments. CenterCal walked that plan back, and the company's own explanation points to something bigger than a single site decision: shifting conditions in the multifamily housing market made retail and dining the more attractive bet right now.
CenterCal CEO Jean Paul Wardy put it directly in the company's announcement of the new tenant lineup, saying the shopping center "continues to be one of the strongest retail environments in the country" and that the expansion lets them "introduce retail and dining options that align with how the market has evolved and what customers are looking for today." Whatever you make of the apartment math elsewhere in the valley, the developer with the most skin in this specific patch of ground looked at building housing here and chose national retail brands instead. That's a read on near-term risk from the company writing the checks, not a marketing line about foot traffic.
The Intersection That Was Already Full
None of this is happening in a vacuum for anyone who already drives Eagle Road and Fairview Avenue regularly. Shawn Martin, a traffic engineer with the Ada County Highway District, has been blunt about what that intersection already looks like before a single new store opens its doors. He's called it one of the highest-capacity, highest-volume intersections he's seen in 25 years on the job.
The road widening now underway isn't a reactive city project, either. It's funded through a Sales Tax Anticipation Revenue agreement the Village's developer signed years ago, which lets the developer pay for the roadway work up front and get reimbursed later out of sales tax the project generates. It's the third and final phase of that original agreement, expanding Eagle Road specifically to handle growth tied to this shopping center. Martin's own caution about what wider lanes actually buy you is worth sitting with: as he put it, as fast as a road gets widened, cars tend to fill it back up. If your usual route to the Village runs through that intersection, the fall opening waves are a good excuse to test an alternate way in before the second round of stores adds to the mix.
What's Opening Nearby But Isn't Actually Part Of This
Not everything changing near the Village this season belongs to the new wing, and mixing them up is an easy way to end up in the wrong parking lot. Salt and Straw, the ice cream chain, was reported this spring to be moving into the former Bodovino space near the Village's fountain, a different footprint entirely from the six new buildings along Eagle Road. It's a reminder that the Village is churning on two tracks at once: the highly visible new construction out front, and the quieter turnover of tenants inside the part of the property that's already open.
What This Means For Your Next Few Trips
If you live near the Village, the practical takeaway isn't complicated, but it is different from what most of the coverage implies. There's no single date to wait for. The first stores worth checking on, most likely the smaller retail spaces that finished construction earliest, should be opening their doors sometime between late September and late October. If the store you're waiting on doesn't show up then, the next realistic window is right before the holidays, and anything still dark after that lands sometime between January and February 2027. Plan your trips, and your parking strategy, around that spread rather than a single grand reopening, and you'll have a much more accurate picture of what a Saturday at the Village actually looks like this fall than the renderings alone would tell you.
Nicole Morgan keeps a close eye on what's actually changing on the ground in Meridian, not just what's in the press release, because that's the kind of detail that matters whether you're settled in for the long haul or just trying to time your next trip to the Village. If you ever want that same level of read on your own corner of the Treasure Valley, or you're curious what a shift like this could mean for your home's value down the line, you can request a free home valuation from Nicole Morgan anytime.
