LCDC agrees to buy bathroom

COEUR d'ALENE - Lake City Development Corp. is helping college students feel relief.

With a roughly $25,000 john, not tuition.

The board has agreed to fund a new bathroom for Lewis-Clark State College and Boise State University students taking classes in the two portable classrooms on the portion of the North Idaho College campus known as the former DeArmond Mill site.

So before the bad weather sets in, those knowledge-hungry pupils won't have to trek as far - or miss as much of the lecture - when they have to interrupt their studies to go.

No hall pass required.

"The time frame didn't allow for us to take care of all the details immediately," said Cyndie Hammond, LCSC-Coeur d'Alene director, on taking over the lease for the two portable classrooms from NIC in time for the fall semester's start Aug. 24. "Now we need to backtrack and take care of some of the details."

The urban renewal board agreed Sept. 15 to help fund those details by paying for a $24,800 bathroom that will meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards. Such a facility is missing from the portable site.

Currently, there are 423 LCSC-Cd'A students and 55 BSU ones. That's up about from 8 percent from last year, and 73 percent over the eight years.

Those students have to run to the Winton, Meyer Health Science, and library buildings when nature calls.

Or they use an "Econo John" ADA port-a-potty next to the buildings. The latter is without adequate lighting, heating and insulation. And at night or in bad weather it poses a safety concern, specifically for students with disabilities.

Not exactly convenient, and some of the current students are disabled, Hammond said.

Supporting education, and improving the education corridor are key goals of the urban renewal agency, Executive Director Tony Berns said during last week's meeting on why the board agreed to fund the facility.

The new facility would be an 8-by-10 foot finished building on a skid pad with adequate lighting, heating, and ventilation to meet state and city codes. It would be hooked up to sewer, water, and electricity and have a sink, too. It should be up sometime this fall.

And the one-time grant from the board isn't being flushed away either.

The facility will be returned to the urban renewal agency if a permanent facility is built when the education corridor undergoes reconstruction and possibly adds more buildings near the site.

That means the Coeur d'Alene Parks Department or School District 271 could get the building down the road, the board said.