Drive Main Street between Birch and Buchanan this week and you'll find one lane open in each direction, orange barrels where the median used to be, and a stretch of the south sidewalk stripped down to bare ground. It looks like a routine road project. It isn't. This is Phase 2 of Jerome's downtown rebuild, and it happens to be landing in the same stretch of August as the biggest event on the county calendar and the relocation of a 28-year-old car show. Those three things are not separate stories. They are the same story, told through pavement, a parade route, and a park.
Here's the piece that's easy to miss if you only notice the cones: Jerome hasn't changed the shape of its downtown corridor like this in a generation, and the fair board, the car show organizers, and the city are all adjusting their plans around it at the same time. If you live here, the next few months are worth understanding on their own terms, not just enduring.
What's actually torn up right now
The city started construction on Main Street in July, and the project has two clear halves. Phase 1 wrapped in September 2025, covering Alder Street from 1st Avenue West to Avenue A, and Avenue A over to South Lincoln. Phase 2 is the one you're driving through now.
| Phase | Streets covered | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | Alder St (1st Ave W to Ave A) and Ave A to S. Lincoln | Completed September 2025 |
| Phase 2 | Main St (Birch to Buchanan) and S. Lincoln Ave (Main St to Ave A) | Underway now, targeted for November 2026 |
The inside lanes of Main Street closed first, on July 6, to let crews pull out the old median. One lane stayed open in each direction while that happened. Sidewalk removal on the south side began July 9, and the city has kept access open to storefronts through that stretch even as the concrete in front of them disappears. The whole project is priced at $5.7 million, split between the Idaho Transportation Department, federal ADA funding, and Jerome Urban Development dollars, and the city's target for wrapping it up is November.
Jerome's Planning and Zoning Manager, Ida Clark, has said the project reflects what residents have asked for in surveys and comprehensive plans for years. Not everyone downtown is convinced the construction alone will solve what makes the corridor hard to love. Nathan Ritter, who works at Renew Cafe on Main Street, pointed out during the summer that the road is still owned by the state and will still carry through-traffic once the dust settles. "This is a state highway," he said, and he's right that new curbs and trees don't change who else uses the road.
Other business owners see it differently. Maria Bucklew, who owns Kachale Thrift Store on Main, told a local reporter she thinks the upgrade makes sense for a town that's growing. Both things can be true at once. The street will look different in November. Whether that changes how it feels to walk down it is still an open question, and probably one that gets answered slowly, storefront by storefront, over the next year.
Why the fair parade skipped Main Street this year
If you've watched the Jerome County Fair parade come down Main Street every August for as long as you can remember, this was the year that broke the pattern. With construction tearing up the corridor, parade organizers built a new route for 2026, running just under two miles along what's normally the Homecoming Parade path. It started at Jerome High School and ended at Jerome Middle School, kicking off this past Saturday, August 8, at 10 a.m., two days ahead of the fair itself.
The Jerome County Fair and Rodeo runs August 10 through 15 this year, starting tomorrow, with the fairgrounds hosting six straight days of rodeo, midget wrestling, live music, and sled pulls, including the Pandamonium Sled Pull on the 15th. This year's theme, Stars, Stripes, and Summer Nights, ties into the nation's 250th birthday, and the fairgrounds themselves have served as a community gathering place for more than a century. The parade reroute is a small logistical footnote next to all of that, but it's the clearest sign yet of how much the construction is actually reshaping daily movement through town, not just traffic counts on a city report.
Where things stand for the businesses in the middle of it
Access hasn't disappeared during construction. The city has worked to keep alleyways and rear parking open behind Main Street storefronts even as the front sidewalks come up, and businesses have stayed open through both phases so far. If you're downtown this month, a few things are worth knowing:
- Renew Cafe and Kachale Thrift Store are both open and reachable, though front-door access shifts as crews move block by block.
- La Fresita Loka, a newer sweet treat shop that opened earlier this year and has been filling a gap in Jerome's dessert scene, is worth the stop if you haven't tried it yet.
- Parking during construction is mostly redirected to public lots and alley access points rather than street parking directly in front of storefronts, so budget an extra minute to find a spot.
None of this is dramatic. It's the ordinary friction of a small downtown mid-repair, and it's temporary by design.
What November is supposed to look like
The finished corridor is meant to look and function differently than the Main Street Jerome has driven for decades. The plan calls for new curbs, gutters, and sidewalks where they're needed most, new trees and pedestrian lighting, updated crosswalks, and ADA ramps at intersections that don't have them today. A new traffic signal is going in at Main and Lincoln, and new water main services on the south side of West Main Street are being installed specifically so new businesses moving into that stretch can meet current fire code.
That last detail matters more than it sounds like on paper. Clark has pointed to a College of Southern Idaho development coming to downtown Jerome as one of the projects riding alongside the streetscape work. Water and fire code upgrades aren't the kind of thing that make a good photo, but they're often the reason a vacant storefront can or can't become something new.
The season's other moving pieces
Downtown construction isn't the only thing changing shape in Jerome this August. Joe Mama's Car Show, now in its 28th year, has moved its main event out of the Main Street parks entirely, relocating to the larger Founders Park behind the Valley Wide Country Store on E 100 S for its August 14 and 15 dates. The Friday night Show 'n' Shine kicks off at Con Paulos Chevrolet with a cruise over to the park, and organizers made the move in part because Founders Park offers more room for show cars, even though it's unshaded, so pop-up canopies are recommended if you're heading over.
Put together, the picture is a downtown in the middle of visible change on more than one front at once. The construction, the parade reroute, and the car show relocation aren't three unrelated inconveniences. They're what it looks like when a small city's core actually shifts, block by block, in real time, rather than all at once behind a ribbon-cutting.
What to do with this information right now
If you live in Jerome, the practical takeaway is simple. Expect one lane through Birch to Buchanan into the fall, plan an extra few minutes for parking downtown, and don't assume a storefront is closed just because the sidewalk in front of it is torn up. The fair runs through Saturday, so there's still most of the week left to catch the rodeo and the sled pull. And if you haven't been to Founders Park yet, Joe Mama's Car Show this coming Friday and Saturday is as good a reason as any to see what the space can hold.
Main Street won't look like this in November. Knowing the shape of the story now, while it's still under construction, is the difference between sitting through a detour and watching a downtown decide what it wants to become.
If you're weighing what any of this means for a home you already own in Jerome, or a move you're considering into the area, Kristie Holman is a calm, straightforward call away. Schedule a free consultation whenever you're ready to talk through it.
