McEuen Field public meetings

COEUR d'ALENE - Get ready to brainstorm. McEuen Field is back on the table.

Conceptually, that is, as the city of Coeur d'Alene is beginning public discussions later this month on what should or could happen to the 17-acre downtown park.

The end goal is simple: Enhance public space.

But how exactly you do that is the question, and one that has been lingering around town for years.

Mayor Sandi Bloem said the idea for any type of redesign needs to be put back in front of the public for ideas, energy and input.

"It will remain a public space and it will become exactly the public space you want to use," Bloem said at the Kootenai Environmental Alliance luncheon Thursday at the Iron Horse. "We're going to have to go into this with the mindset that we can hear the public and assure you it's a space, if we change it, that you want to have changed."

That means no plans are set in stone, so any worries about commercial buildings, parking structures or doing away with the ball fields shouldn't be either, she said.

The city does have the old conceptual designs, including a decade-old one from the Committee of 9, a group of locals who penned a blueprint for a redone park after the Walker-Macy Public Spaces Master Plan was completed.

The old conceptual ideas include lots of open green space, underground parking, ball fields, tennis courts and a community gathering place.

But things have changed since then, the mayor said, including more residential dwellings around the park, more retail space around nearby Front Avenue, a new public library, and around 50 more organized sport teams in town.

So, do the old ideas still fit? Did they ever? What needs to happen to the park several national design groups have called "a gateway to Coeur d'Alene" that absolutely should not leave its lake views to parked cars.

That, Bloem said, is for the public to answer.

"We have all of this to look at as we start now," she said. "We have past planning, what's changed in the last 10 years and we have what is it the community is thinking about as we move forward."

But timing is of the essence.

The adjacent Front Avenue is long overdue for improvements, which the city has been holding off on doing, and time is running out on the urban renewal district in which the park sits.

Lake City Development Corp., the city's urban renewal board, would be a key financial source for the project - although everything is too conceptual to estimate costs - so if the board is going to start offering help, the sooner it knows the better.

Also, the city is applying for a special National Endowment for the Arts Mayor's Institute on City Design grant for up to $250,000 to pay for planning.

"It could use some revamping," said Leeja Junker, not at the luncheon but walking his dog through the park Thursday. "Everything's tiny. The basketball courts are tiny, and you have a tiny little play area for kids."

The first public meeting is tentatively scheduled for March 25, hosted by a professional facilitator.