BOISE – The Greater Boise Auditorium District has agreed to pay $700,000 to buy a parcel of land in downtown Boise where a new convention center and Marriott hotel might be built.

The deal is expected to close early next year, said Pat Rice, general manager of the Boise Centre on The Grove, the city’s current convention center.

The district faced the possibility of losing the land to a trust that represents the grandchildren of billionaire potato magnate J.R. Simplot. The trust can buy the land back if construction on a new convention center hasn’t started by August.

A Missouri company would build the $100 million convention center and then lease it to the auditorium district.

The district would make the payments with money that comes from a 5 percent room tax collected on more than 5,000 hotel rooms in the district.

Rice said the tax brought in about $4.4 million in 2007.