His business has seen the university going to four-year status and the new temple "driving everything" within the area's current economy — a dramatic departure from the town's historic reliance on agriculture.

Madison Memorial Hospital is now undergoing a $40 million expansion that is slated for completion this fall in the heart of downtown, near where a multimillion-dollar mixed-use development is now under way, to be built near the city's historic Main Street not far from the university, Olsen said.

Two brothers who grew up here and left Rexburg years ago are returning to oversee the development project, which is estimated to cost between $20 million and $30 million and will make over an entire city block between First and Second South.

Seen by some as a miniature version of what the LDS Church is doing in downtown Salt Lake City with the City Creek Center, the project is scheduled to include a mix of hotel, boutique-type retail, office space and upscale apartment living.

"It will break ground as soon as ground can be broken," Olsen said. "They've been public, and they've gone to planning and zoning. They are local guys that have said 'yes, we're doing it.' It will be the biggest thing to hit this community for a long time."

As overseer for industry in the wider county, Boyle said development is expanding into the surrounding area as well.

Last summer, a new "self-contained community" called Fox Ridge was announced after approval by the county planning and zoning commission, to be built on an 1,800-acre site along the western ridge of the Rexburg Bench about a mile southeast of where the temple now stands.

Plans call for more than 2,000 homes, along with schools, churches, a golf course, small business district, parks, green space and miles of bike paths.

"Everywhere you go — east, west, north and south — there are new subdivisions," Boyle said. Charged with drawing jobs to the area to become the engine for continuing growth, leaders are looking for "light industry" with its accompanying high-paying jobs.

He sees promise in companies like A-Met, a home-grown company specializing in automation welding started by two locals in the basement of one man's home that now has sister companies in China, Canada and Europe. It's one of 15 businesses that have filled the Rexburg Business Park in the past few years, many of them of the home-grown variety.

To help foster that entrepreneurship, the city recently opened an off-campus Entrepreneurship Center that helps train selected BYU-Idaho students in hands-on experience with performing due diligence and formulating business plans for local start-up companies.