McEuen Field bids sought

COEUR d’ALENE — The city of Coeur d’Alene will begin receiving bids from design firms interested in crafting what the new McEuen Field will look like.

On Tuesday night, the City Council approved calling for requests for qualifications from companies, anticipating not to spend more than $125,000 for the work.

“This is going to be the basis on what we do,” said Deanna Goodlander, councilwoman.

The new company will be comprised of landscape architects and engineers to design a plan using information on the park from previous meetings and studies and to ensure the blueprint can be implemented from an engineering standpoint. The design could include roughly seven lots of properties Lake City Development Corp. owns south of City Hall and will incorporate reconstruction plans for Front Avenue.

Councilman Ron Edinger was the lone vote against sending the project out to bid, suggesting instead to draw the park’s new design from previous community ideas and use city engineers for the engineering side.

Edinger said it could save the city money since it has spent around $228,000 for studies and plans that have included McEuen Field concepts in the past.

But ensuring the design was structurally sound and practical to implement required professional services, the council said, and the city’s engineering department’s heavy workload would require the city to out source for services.

Construction of some kind is expected next summer.